“I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.”

— Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking, whose brilliant mind ranged across time and space though his body was paralyzed by disease, died early Wednesday, a University of Cambridge spokesman said. He was 76 years old.

Hawking died peacefully at his home in Cambridge, England.

The best-known theoretical physicist of his time, Hawking wrote so lucidly of the mysteries of space, time and black holes that his book, “A Brief History of Time,” became an international best seller, making him one of science’s biggest celebrities since Albert Einstein.

“He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years,” his children Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement. “He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humour inspired people across the world.

He once said, ‘It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.’ We will miss him forever.”

Even though his body was attacked by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, when Hawking was 21, he stunned doctors by living with the normally fatal illness for more than 50 years. A severe attack of pneumonia in 1985 left him breathing through a tube, forcing him to communicate through an electronic voice synthesizer that gave him his distinctive robotic monotone.

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking died early Wednesday, a University of Cambridge spokesman said. Hawking was known for writing about the mysteries of space, time and black holes.

He was 76 years old. (March 14th 2018) but he continued his scientific work, appeared on television and had married for a second time. As one of Isaac Newton’s successors as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, Hawking was involved in the search for the great goal of physics — a “unified theory.”

Such a theory would resolve the contradictions between Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which describes the laws of gravity that govern the motion of large objects like planets, and the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, which deals with the world of subatomic particles.

For Hawking, the search was almost a religious quest — he said finding a “theory of everything” would allow mankind to “know the mind of God.”

“A complete, consistent unified theory is only the first step: our goal is a complete understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence,” he wrote in “A Brief History of Time.”

In later years, though, he suggested a unified theory might not exist.

“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”

He followed up “A Brief History of Time” in 2001 with the more accessible sequel “The Universe in a Nutshell,” updating readers on concepts like super gravity, naked singularities and the possibility of an 11-dimensional universe.

Hawking said belief in a God who intervenes in the universe “to make sure the good guys win or get rewarded in the next life” was wishful thinking.

“But one can’t help asking the question: Why does the universe exist?” he said in 1991. “I don’t know an operational way to give the question or the answer, if there is one, a meaning. But it bothers me.”

The combination of his best-selling book and his almost total disability — for a while he could use a few fingers, later he could only tighten the muscles on his face — made him one of science’s most recognizable faces.

He made cameo television appearances in “The Simpsons” and “Star Trek” and counted among his fans U2 guitarist The Edge, who attended a January 2002 celebration of Hawking’s 60th birthday.

His early life was chronicled in the 2014 film “The Theory of Everything,” with Eddie Redmayne winning the best actor Academy Award for his portrayal of the scientist. The film focused still more attention on Hawking’s remarkable achievements.

Some colleagues credited that celebrity with generating new enthusiasm for science.

His achievements and his longevity helped prove to many that even the most severe disabilities need not stop patients from living.

Richard Green, of the Motor Neurone Disease Association — the British name for ALS — said Hawking met the classic definition of the disease, as “the perfect mind trapped in an imperfect body.” He said Hawking had been an inspiration to people with the disease for many years.

Although it could take him minutes to compose answers to even simple questions Hawking said the disability did not impair his work. It certainly did little to dampen his ambition to physically experience space himself: Hawking savored small bursts of weightlessness in 2007 when he was flown aboard a jet that made repeated dives to simulate zero-gravity.

Hawking had hoped to leave Earth’s atmosphere altogether someday, a trip he often recommended to the rest of the planet’s inhabitants.

“In the long run the human race should not have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet,” Hawking said in 2008. “I just hope we can avoid dropping the basket until then.”

Hawking first earned prominence for his theoretical work on black holes. Disproving the belief that black holes are so dense that nothing could escape their gravitational pull, he showed that black holes leak a tiny bit of light and other types of radiation, now known as “Hawking radiation.”

“It came as a complete surprise,” said Gary Horowitz, a theoretical physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It really was quite revolutionary.”

Horowitz said the find helped move scientists one step closer to cracking the unified theory.

Hawking’s other major scientific contribution was to cosmology, the study of the universe’s origin and evolution. Working with Jim Hartle of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Hawking proposed in 1983 that space and time might have no beginning and no end. “Asking what happens before the Big Bang is like asking for a point one mile north of the North Pole,” he said.

In 2004, he announced that he had revised his previous view that objects sucked into black holes simply disappeared, perhaps to enter an alternate universe. Instead, he said he believed objects could be spit out of black holes in a mangled form.

That new theory capped his three-decade struggle to explain a paradox in scientific thinking: How can objects really “disappear” inside a black hole and leave no trace, as he long believed, when subatomic theory says matter can be transformed but never fully destroyed?

Hawking was born Jan. 8, 1942, in Oxford, and grew up in London and St. Albans, northwest of the capital. In 1959, he entered Oxford University and then went on to graduate work at Cambridge.

Signs of illness appeared in his first year of graduate school, and he was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease after the New York Yankee star who died of it. The disease usually kills within three to five years.

According to John Boslough, author of “Stephen Hawking’s Universe,” Hawking became deeply depressed. But as it became apparent that he was not going to die soon, his spirits recovered and he bore down on his work. Brian Dickie, director of research at the Motor Neurone Disease Association, said only 5 percent of those diagnosed with ALS survive for 10 years or longer. Hawking, he added, “really is at the extreme end of the scale when it comes to survival.”

Hawking married Jane Wilde in 1965 and they had three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy.

Jane cared for Hawking for 20 years, until a grant from the United States paid for the 24-hour care he required.

He was inducted into the Royal Society in 1974 and received the Albert Einstein Award in 1978. In 1989, Queen Elizabeth II made him a Companion of Honor, one of the highest distinctions she can bestow.

He whizzed about Cambridge at surprising speed — usually with nurses or teaching assistants in his wake — traveled and lectured widely, and appeared to enjoy his fame. He retired from his chair as Lucasian Professor in 2009 and took up a research position with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

Hawking divorced Jane in 1991, an acrimonious split that strained his relationship with their children. Writing in her autobiographical “Music to Move the Stars,” she said the strain of caring for Hawking for nearly three decades had left her feeling like “a brittle, empty shell.” Hawking married his one-time nurse Elaine Mason four years later, but the relationship was dogged by rumors of abuse.

Police investigated in 2004 after newspapers reported that he’d been beaten, suffering injuries including a broken wrist, gashes to the face and a cut lip, and was left stranded in his garden on the hottest day of the year.

Hawking called the charges “completely false.” Police found no evidence of any abuse. Hawking and Mason separated in 2006.

Lucy Hawking said her father had an exasperating “inability to accept that there is anything he cannot do.”

“I accept that there are some things I can’t do,” he told The Associated Press in 1997. “But they are mostly things I don’t particularly want to do anyway.”

Then, grinning widely, he added, “I seem to manage to do anything that I really want.”

Maybe in his imperfection he was the most perfect Human being as the Vitruvian man of our times.

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

‘Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. & however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at’.

— Stephen Hawking

ON WHY THE UNIVERSE EXISTS

“If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God”

From A Brief History of Time (1988)

ON HIS ILLNESS

“My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus”

Interview with The New York Times (2004)

ON HIS LIFE PURPOSE

“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all”

From Stephen Hawking’s Universe by John Boslough (1985)

ON GOD

“It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going”

From The Grand Design (2010)

ON HIS CELEBRITY STATUS

“The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away”

Interview with Israeli TV (2006)

ON HUMAN IMPERFECTION

“Without imperfection, you or I would not exist”

From “The Universe With Stephen Hawking”, Discovery Channel (2010)

ON CONTACT WITH ALIENS

“I think it would be a disaster. The extraterrestrials would probably be far in advance of us. The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species. I think we should keep our heads low”

Indeed in World politics, in international diplomacy, in US politics and in the Macro level Economics — Donald Trump is an innovator. An innovator in business and in life, and certainly an innovator in government…

He has broken the mold that ordinary leaders are cast of, and he has proven that he is willing to go where none tread before him.

Indeed he is absolutely not afraid to break with the establishment’s orthodox dogma and he finds favor by doing the unexpected.

He favors building a winning team, and then with this smartest possible staff, going after the targets he has set for himself based on the promises that he made to the American voters during his campaign. Isn’t that refreshing?

Indeed to get to the optimum team structure — you have to fire and hire all the time. As indeed Trump has done over the past few weeks, where there have been some high profile departures from the White House, most notably Rex Tillerson becoming yesterday’s news.

If anyone is still looking at Fake News sites, like CNN, where they attribute it to Trump being unstable, and the White House in some kind of chaos — you would think “what the hell is going on?”

But the success factor of the Trump administration with grave and important issues for the whole world, like the issue of North Korea — definitely puts that lie to the test. And since the truth is that President Trump has been successful his entire life and this continued success doesn’t come from being unstable, but from surrounding himself with the best team of individual leaders possible, and constantly cultivating that team with changing positions so that they “play ball” optimally and score constantly. Firing people when they can no longer perform what’s expected of them, is the right thing for a leader to do.

Am sure many of you follow the Sporting news and you see this thing playing out in all teams of champions. Even in fantasy football this is the case when you seek to assemble your dream team. Of course for the White House, it may not look too good to have so many changes in the public eye, but President Trump isn’t about looking good, and being politically correct — he’s about doing the right thing, and being successful.

Winning is very important to him, and that is why he surrounds himself with people who can score. He wants scorers, literally and figuratively. Imagine if he had kept on all his “untried” personnel from the first day he got in the White House, just so he can look good, and so that he can give off the impression that there is no chaos. He would have been up to his ears in “dead wood” and that in of itself, would be chaos, because the business of the state would have seized up. The country wouldn’t be getting results, nor what is best for it. Instead it would be getting only good “visuals” for CNN and the rest of the fake news, and still wouldn’t get what’s best for the President’s sex appeal outlook.

As it turns out, Trump decided early on, that is not what he wanted for his Presidency, and he is sticking to it. President Trump is a little more than a year, into the job, and he apparently only just getting started. He is getting comfortable with his surroundings and is slowly but surely figuring out who can help support him and his agenda for MAGA and the American people. And he is winning already too.

Therefore, there should be no surprise with all of his team changes, the reorientations of personnel, and the departures of some high level staff. Just to be clear — I am certain that we’ll see quite a few more team reassignments over the next few weeks, in order for President Trump to be able to play ball, and win, over and over again, with his type of a great and effective “Dream Team.”

Indeed seeing with my own eyes as a successful CEO — the perspective that Donald Trump is taking to truly Make America Great Again, by getting rid of people that aren’t performing properly, and putting in their place, people who can outwit their opponents, am fully satisfied with the results. And again if the new hires, start failing, he replaces them quickly with other ones.

Isn’t that what great team building coaches do?

He is a great practitioner of the Tech StartUp principle of “fail often — fail fast” that we use in the StartUp world of entrepreneurship, and this is obviously being utilized here too. Indeed he never fails to try, and that means that he will surely fail a bunch of times, but that he will also succeed a bunch of times, as well.

If instead he had failed to try anything new — he would have never succeeded in the things he has delivered so far either … Think about it. Especially, if you are still gripped with fear and griping about “The Donald” driving you crazy.

Just look at the issue of Immigration where he tried his level best. You saw him trying mightily, and you shall find him solidly on the right footing of History on the issue of this group of young people called the Dreamers. Believe it or not, “Dreamers” dreams, have crashed down, and they don’t have a path to citizenship thanks to the crazy way the Democratic party leadership never negotiated on their behalf, and thus failed to even try to handle this issue.

The DNC and the Democratic party leaders who for years have been infantilizing there Dreamers — they thought that by throwing a temper tantrum, they will win. And they failed to even attempt to negotiate in a serious manner with the Trump White house. After that, they lied and obfuscated the reality of their debauchery, demonizing the President. They demonized and infuriated the President because Trump was willing to legalize not just 800k dreamers as requested by the Democrats, but he was going to legalize 1.8 million people, and the only thing President Trump asked in return, was to secure the Southern border of the United States with some type of a wall. And the stupid idiots, refused to take him up on his offer… What kind of morons are these Dems — nobody really knows…

Imagine the surprise of President Trump when the Democratic party leadership refused to take this deal… So maybe its time for the “Dreamers” to start protesting against their Democratic patrons, because they are the ones at fault on this issue. Maybe too much tequila in their margaritas, or the weed is too strong, or something else clouded their judgement, but whatever it is — it stinks. So now, all the DREAMERS, are out of luck, and forever stuck in a limbo, without being legalized and without a clear path for citizenship or even the protections afforded them by an sort of amnesty.

Trump tried his level best and now he has moved on to other importune matters that require his attention. But the Dreamers are now must be turning around and blaming their leaders, especially now that President Trump and the attention of the world has shifted to these other, far more weighty matters.

Now the Trumpster is focusing all his energies on resolving the issues emanating form the troubled nation of North Korea that through it’s unchecked Nuclear missile program, and it’s aggressive eruptions of nuclear missiles flying off at random targets like Japan, Hawaii, South Korea, and even the western cities of the United States mainland — represents the biggest threat to World Peace today.

Trump may be a lot of things to a lot of people, however, we can bank on him to always be doing what he thinks is the right thing for America, for the American people, and for our national pride — at any cost to himself and to his political or even personal sex-appeal…

And even contrary to popular opinion, he is a proven team player, a great team leader, and a proven Winner.

And now news has arrived that even the Nobel Peace prize committee is paying careful attention, to the reports of the progress he has spurred on the issues of the militarized Korean peninsula, and they think that the American President Trump’s sex appeal with the Nordic beauties & beautifiers, has increased significantly. Even inside the Scandinavian royal circles… we hear the he is a favorite for the Nobel peace prize, since he forged this new Korean peninsula denuclearization policy that might bear fruit any moment now.

Of course, you must feel free to have had a chuckle over the recent news that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee had received a forged nomination for Donald Trump. It seemed that the culprit, who allegedly stole someone else’s identity to make the pitch and is now under investigation by the Norwegian police, did the same thing a year ago.

But how utterly preposterous, that the Nobel committee is considering this man who at one point even went so far as to refuse to acknowledge the Nato Treaty’s provision of mutual self-defense, (for about five minutes), still plunging the Alliance into an existential crisis the likes of which it hasn’t experienced in years.

Trump is she man who, while campaigning for President of the United States, mused about withdrawing the US military commitments to South Korea, and Japan, and encouraging them to acquire nuclear weapons.

This is the man whose “off-the-reservation” rhetoric at the United Nations about North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-un, sent the rest of the world into paroxysms of anxiety and dread. He would “totally destroy North Korea,” he said. “Rocket man” was on a “suicide mission” as he continued to build and test missiles apparently capable of striking the US with nuclear payloads.

We were beginning to wonder who of the two leaders was more bonkers, Kim or Trump.

But hold on to your horses of mirth and merriment… because President Trump seems to be having the last laugh again, since the top diplomats sent to North Korea’s Pyongyang by South Korea’s government in Seoul, with specific orders to attempt to carry forward a sudden “thaw” that began with North Korea’s unexpected participation in the Winter Olympics — have reported a stunning breakthrough.

Immense progress underlies this tweet that is seemingly the only thing Trump wrote about. Progress measured in these highlights of the negotiations for the high level meetings among the leaders of the North and South who will hold their first summit in more than a decade. First off, the North asked for direct talks with the United States on ending their face-off. And they promised that throughout the process, North Korea will desist from further nuclear rocket fly-bys, eruptions, erections, and from any other nuclear missile send-offs towards Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, or western cities of the continental United States…

Remember that the so called “false alarm” in Hawaii a couple of months ago that was blamed on the fat fingers of the operator?

It wasn’t a false alarm after all.

It was real as fvck, and thank God the interception of this North Korean nuclear missile was successful — otherwise all that cozy waterfront Hawaii real estate would have been toast and Waikiki would now resemble Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the nuclear blast in 1945.

Now under the influence of the impending war and the mayhem unleashed from the combined assembled US carrier fleets off the coast of the Korean peninsula — both North and South Korean leaders have agreed to meet next month at the “truce village” of Panmunjom, on the North-South DMZ line that is about 40 miles north of Seoul. This will be only the third inter-Korean summit, since the Korean war, and the only one where a real breakthrough is seen as a possibility.

The sudden announcement of talks between North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in marks a dramatic potential step towards inter-Korean harmony – and a dividend of moves towards peace initiated at last month’s Winter Olympics in the South Korean mountain district of Pyeongchang.

Mr Chung Eui-yong, Mr Moon’s national security adviser, announced the summit at a briefing at which he had been expected only to report on his visit to Pyongyang on Monday, when he and other members of his delegation were hosted to dinner by Mr Kim.

Mr Kim was said to have described that conversation as “open-hearted”, but there was also a hint that the two sides would agree right away to a summit. He had invited Mr Moon to the summit three weeks ago in a letter that his younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, personally delivered while attending the PyeongChang Olympic games opening ceremonies in South Korea.

Mr Moon responded warmly to the idea by agreeing to a summit depending on “the right conditions” being met. Clearly Mr Kim came through with acceptable responses, and by meeting the pre-conditions the Summit was arranged.

Upon hearing the news, the South Korean people have responded with feelings ranging from open and warm exhilaration to stone cold scepticism. “This is great” said Kim Han-jin, a young businessman. “We should keep talking until the North is denuclearised.” Another person, who did not want her name used, said: “The US should cooperate instead of making threats against North Korea.” Korean conservatives, however, took quite a different view. “President Moon is falling for Kim Jong-un’s double talk,” said a middle-aged man. “He won’t give up anything. He wants to weaken our defences.”

First and foremost, said Mr Chung Eui-yong, Mr Kim agreed “the denuclearisation issue may be discussed as an agenda for the North-US dialogue” – an understanding that marked a clear departure from North Korea’s previous refusal to discuss the nuclear issue at all.

Indeed, Mr Chung Eui-yong said that North Korea’s President Mr Kim, “has clearly stated that the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula was an instruction of his predecessor” – that is, his father, Kim Jong-il. Mr Kim, further said “there has been no change to such an instruction”.

Mr Kim reportedly fortified that promise with assurances that American leaders are likely to greet with scepticism. Analysts quickly noted that Mr Kim hoped, by agreeing to holding a summit so soon, to throw off planning for joint US-Korean military exercises set to begin early next month.

However, both Mr Moon, and President Donald Trump have insisted the war games will be held as scheduled, but South Koreans are sure to express doubts as to whether they are such a good idea in the run-up to what would be the third inter-Korean summit – the first since the late Roh Moo-hyun met Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang in 2007. Roh’s predecessor, the late Kim Dae-jung, flew to Pyongyang in June 2000 for the first inter-Korean summit – a dividend of Mr Kim’s “sunshine policy” of North-South reconciliation.

This summit would be fundamentally different from the other two in one aspect. The agreement to meet at “truce village” Panmunjom, where the Korean War armistice was signed in 1953, means that Mr Moon would not be in the position of going as a supplicant to Pyongyang. Rather, the two would be meeting on equal, neutral ground – symbolic of their mutual desire to keep up the momentum generated by the Olympics.

“The North side,” said Mr Chung Eui-yong, at his briefing at the Blue House, the presidential residence and office complex, “clearly affirmed its commitment to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and said it would have no reason to possess nuclear weapons should the safety of its regime be guaranteed and military threats against North Korea removed.” Indeed, he added, “the North promised not to use not only nuclear weapons but also conventional weapons against the South”.

This policy, if followed, marks a sharp reversal from the pattern of missile and nuclear tests that have characterised Kim Jong-un’s rule. Mr Kim has ordered 10 missile tests, including three of long-range ballistic missiles theoretically capable of delivering a warhead to American targets, since Mr Moon won the presidency in a “snap election” last May after the impeachment, ouster and jailing of his conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye. Mr Kim has also ordered two underground nuclear tests.

Even if South and North Korea do stage possibly modified military exercises in the next few weeks, the plan for the summit is certain to force Mr Trump to abandon any thought of exercising the “military option”, possibly a preemptive strike on the North’s nuclear and missile facilities. Mr Moon, while calling for strengthening of the South’s armed forces along with denuclearisation, has opposed any attack on North Korea as almost certain to invite a counter-attack on South Korea’s densely populated capital region of Seoul and the nearby west coast port Incheon.

Just to make sure nothing goes wrong, said Mr Chung Eui-yong, South and North Korea also agreed “to set up a hotline between their leaders to allow close consultations and a reduction of military tension, while also agreeing to hold the first phone conversation before the third South-North summit”.

That the US intelligence community isn’t exactly popping the champagne is to be expected. Scepticism is the order of the day. “Hope springs eternal but we need to learn a lot more relative to these talks,” Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence, told members of Congress. “And we will.”

Less surprising was President Trump’s evincing, a fair degree of optimism as seen here: “Possible progress being made in talks with North Korea,” he wrote in his tweet. “For the first time in many years, a serious effort is being made by all parties concerned. The World is watching and waiting! May be false hope, but the U.S. is ready to go hard in either direction!”

Now it makes total sense how the seemingly amateurish antics of Donald Trump with respect to the Korean peninsula problem have been terrifying for the leaders of the North Korean dictatorship. He was watched carefully by all concerned as the experts on the Korean peninsula, on the Pacific region, and on denuclearization have all been proven wrong on this, and their efforts drained out of the State Department, that now post-Tillerson is going to be studying “The Art of War” as Donald Trump has utilized when he successfully “played” his enemy the “little rocket boy” Kim.

Part of Trumps psych-ops is that he has attached zero urgency to appointing an ambassador to South Korea, at the time that his threats against the North have created unprecedented tensions between Seoul and Washington. As a matter of fact, he sent Ivanka Trump to Seoul to discuss the situation with President Moon Jae-in and that is the obvious result of personal diplomacy, similar to the move that the North Korean dictator Kim took, when he send his sister to discuss the diplomatic breakthrough that the usually arteriosclerotic diplomats of orthodox dogma on both sides, would never have deigned to think about — let alone could have tried to achieve.

And so Trump rules with his sharp wits and his witticisms. He dislikes experts and he takes a perverse pleasure at proving them wrong time and again…

At the annual Gridiron Dinner in Washington on Saturday, Trump astonished all the seated “experts” by claiming he had talked to North Korea himself. “It was headed for disaster and now we’re talking” is what he announced apropos his speech. “They, by the way, called up a couple of days ago; they said: “We would like to talk.” And I said, “So would we, but you have to denuke.”” He indeed said that it was South Korea he’d been talking to, but, it threw people a curved ball at that dinner and plenty of heads of experts exploded right then and there…

Trump obviously knows, but we don’t know what will happen next. Yet we can say with full confidence, that we wouldn’t be where we are now, were it not for the extreme pressure applied by Trump, pressure, by the way, which the Obama administration chose, for whatever reasons, not to apply.

First the rhetoric. Trump has been consistent in signalling a willingness to order unilateral strikes again North Korea if sanctions and diplomacy were failing and the risk of missile strikes on the US was becoming intolerable. The last scenario was made more vivid by the recent incoming-missile alarm that scared the bejesus out of residents of Hawaii, but was luckily intercepted by the US navy’s missile intercept batteries ringing Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor / Hickam Air Force base.

Still besides the real estate speculators of Hawaii — nobody was more mortified by the notion of renewed conflict on the Korean peninsula than Seoul. The projections for human casualties are terrifying. No wonder after the Hawaii incident — they have worked so hard on rapprochement and conflict resolution with the North Korean dictator.

Trump’s projected military response and his war planning, after the Hawaii incident, overlay his Tweeter threats, and were the biggest part that drove Kim Jung Un, to his apparent change of gear. Yet on the long term softening of North Korea we can see how the trade sanctions were even more compelling. And this is the case that the escalating US sanctions on North Korea may actually be pinching Kim Jung Un hard and to the point of crying “uncle”. Already, the US sanctions and the latest trade embargo measures, were further tightened by the administration last month, and they amount, in Trump’s own tweeter words, to the “heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country”.

More importantly, this time the US has striven to ensure they work; that the pain they are designed to deliver on North Korea actually gets through. Nothing is ever airtight — there will always be countries still anxious to trade with the regime — and Washington still hasn’t gone as far as it might, for example punishing Chinese banks propping up Pyongyang. But other enforcement steps have been taken, like barring US companies from doing business with a long list of shipping companies and vessels believed to have secretly carried North Korean cargo.

And this whole scenario is how Donald Trump freaked out the North Korean dictator and forced his hand to come to the negotiating table…

This is a great deal of “Winning” as Donald Trump has promised the American people, and if this proves to be the beginning of the end, of what was rapidly shaping up to be the most serious international security crisis of our times, then a tremendous amount of credit will be due to Donald J Trump and the Nobel Peace prize will merely be the cherry on the cake.

As for the issue of whether or not he always knew what he was doing, his instinct was clearly correct and he outfoxed the foxes of North Korea, because form now on, there will no more pussyfooting around Pyongyang. A dangerous strategy for sure, but one that just may be about to bear fruit.

Still today, we must consider that although Obama won the Peace Prize prematurely, and subsequently got precisely nowhere resolving the North Korea conundrum, suddenly, we have Donald Trump nailing it down, and “killing it. Just like he did with Stormy Daniels, and now he will do it over little Kim. Indeed this doesn’t seem so implausible today, but it appears to be as much a certainty as wickedly curvy Stormy Daniels, getting nailed, missionary style, by the Big Chief.

So now the Trumpster will renew his game and as he has a deep bench — he will reshuffle around the top heads to have a more effective government.

Trump feels like the Coach at the ball game and he is well endowed to make the best possible team for his world conquest game. He will surely sack more White House staffers after Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State leader who disagreed with Trump’s “diplomacy by Twitter” — and who has now been fired after more than a year of semi-public feuding with President Donald Trump. Actually he is now going to join the Stormy Daniels circuit of jilted ex-partners in the various endeavors of Donald Trump…

And soon others might join Stormy Daniels on that circuit tour of Ex-partners that “worked” with “The Donald” and then left off to pursue other endeavors.

Yours,
Dr Churchill

PS:

Indeed the White House scolded several Cabinet officials after embarrassing ethics reports showed that Tillerson was the 2nd top Trump White House official to either resign or be fired in the past week — following in the ignominious footsteps of top Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn.

Cohn’s departure followed hard on the resignations of White House communications director Hope Hicks, and Josh Raffel, a confidante of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Plus, Trump body man John McEntee was fired on Monday due to ongoing security clearance issues. And so was Steve Goldstein, the Under Secretary of Public Affairs at the State Department, who sent out a statement Tuesday morning saying Tillerson was unaware of the reason he had been fired.

So, who’s next?

There’s at least three individuals that ned to get the boot, and here they are in short order of firing. Now given that Trump has actively feuded with lots of people in his Cabinet — still these three are the most likely ones to be fired via a quick tweet:

Jeff Sessions: Trump has publicly attack the attorney general repeatedly — calling him, among other things, “beleaguered” and “DISGRACEFUL.” He has told not one but two news organizations that he would not have appointed Sessions as AG if he knew Sessions would recuse himself in the Russia investigation. The fact that Trump refers to Jeff Sessions as “Mr. Magoo” in private settings, is a good indication that the President is tired of that old shoe.

I mean…. Jeff has got to go. He is ineffective as fvck, he is a pvssy, and he is too cozy with the deep state. Let him go meet Stormy Daniels and something good might come out of it, for the both of them… because I hear he is still a virgin. A seventy one year old virgin. I bet Stormy Daniels will surely have a go at it…

David Shulkin: Not only did VA Secertary Shulkin misuse taxpayer money on a trip to Europe last year, he is also weathering a scathing report from the inspector general regarding a veterans center in DC that has been plagued by poor management. Even worse? He got the dreaded vote of confidence from the White House earlier this week; White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Shulkin was doing a “great job.”

I say: Fire his ass. White House policy and personnel integrity is worth far more than this sorry loser…

Ryan Zinke: The Interior secretary was on the receiving end of a slew of negative press last week when word leaked out that the department had paid $139,000 to replace doors in his office space. Zinke pled ignorance and said he knew nothing of the expenditure, with his spokesperson pointing to a decision by career employees. Zinke is also facing a series of questions about whether his travel expenditures push the limits of legality. He was one of four Trump Cabinet officials — Shulkin, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, were the others — called to the White House in February for frank conversations about ethics.

Methinks the President should fire him by tweet, especially since Zinke called Trump names, back in the presidential electoral season of 2016.

For decades upon decades, North Korea has aspired to be a loud-mouthed nuclear threat, attempting to extort any enemy it can. Menacing and threatening to get its way like an angry child trying to use bullying tactics to get its way.

Through several presidencies, our leaders have chosen diplomatic stagnation to kick the threat down the road, placing red lines in the sand and watching them get crossed with no consequence.

That was the official strategy for five decades and it has proven to be hugely ineffective, manifesting the largest consequential failure of the United States external International Affairs policy.

All the Harvard Kennedy school of government graduates who populated the State Department for the last couple of generations, were all vital proponents of the false theory of Joseph Nye calling for more and more “Soft Power” and for the rhetoric of respectful dialogue with rogue Dictators, Totalitarian leaders, and evil men, that we had to treat, as if they were some kind of Angels fallen upon this earth.

We can all see how well this “Soft Power” fvcked-up business of Joseph Nye’s nightmarish BS, has worked for us up to now.

Our daft policy of Strategic Diplomacy and Soft Power, is exactly why the Rogue Dictator has managed to get from America, whatever North Korea ever needed to become a nuclear power, without once being questioned, and certainly without ever being stopped.

As a result, it has become a menace, the likes of which are no longer tolerable.

Allowing North Korea to continue to grow their nuclear capabilities would be as responsible as giving a loaded gun to a monkey just to see what he would do with it. In either situation, the threat of people being hurt or worse, killed, is far too great.

Yet providence decreed otherwise… and here now, comes the new servant of the People, one Donald J Trump who has different ideas. Obviously we seem to have finally found a True Leader in the face of this new President Donald J Trump, who is unafraid to stir the hornet’s next, and to tangle with the vipers of North Korea and China.

Because President Trump being fully aware of North Korea’s threat — he has faced it head-on, as only a true leader can.

He uses what a threatening dictator understands — rhetoric backed up with force and a demonstration of willingness to use said force. Sanctions alone have had little or no effect on making this dictator back down.

Thankfully we finally have a leader who is willing to use force and is not afraid of being politically incorrect, and the results are showing for him the Victory we have for so long sought and lusted after…

We have for far too long harkened back to the days of General MacArthur, because for far too long political correctness has controlled the narrative, and the feeble attempts of American globalists and neocons to stay cool with North Korea’s attempts to extort the world. Saying nice things about the North Korean family of bloody awful Dictators, and fearing to offend their hard shell sensibilities while they murder their own citizens wholesale and even execute their own brother in public view — we stood firm on ceremony of soft power and strategic diplomacy that has long outweighed the safety of our nation.

Methinks that it is time now, that America puts America first, and protects its own citizens, it’s own interests, and it’s own sphere of influence — from the all too clear and present dangerous nuclear enhanced threat of North Korea’s ICBMs and nuclear tipped rockets flying towards Pearl Harbor as happened earlier this year and thankfully was intercepted, and was explained away as a “fat Fingers’ operator’s error in raising the nuclear threat alarm.

Yet, now it appears that things have turned around to the point that President Trump himself tweets about meeting with North Korea’s leader over the issue of a nuclear free Korean peninsula…

Indeed a few days ago on March 8th of 2018, President Donald Trump tweeted that a meeting may be in the works between America and North Korea… because North Korea has had enough of sanctions and has decided to seek Terms to revert to a Peaceful standing amongst nations of this Earth.

Of course after her robust history of broken promises, fake deals, loosely worded intimidation, and threats against world peace — who can believe anything that comes out of the North Korean mouths… but it is worth a try to at least make an effort to believe and deal fairly with them in the interest of Peace.

Despite the issues that America has faced, a few simple truths cannot be denied: North Korea has stopped firing missiles, they asked to join the Olympics, and are now requesting to have communications to de-escalate the tensions between our countries.

And also South Korea after the Olympic games has stepped up to the plate, and is now vastly grateful for Donald Trump’s intervention to solve this crisis as seen by the South Korean president Moon Jae-in, who send this Thank You letter to President Trump earlier this week:

This is all Good News, and with Easter remaining in the balance we might see the Good Friday accords all over again. But although we have seen this effort at rapprochement taking place before, as a ploy to continue the North’s nuclear push forward, we now have a real leader in place in America, and is the kind of leader who will not sit idly by, and allow threats and threads to remain, against our great nation, in the name of political correctness.

He will strip the Koreans down to their skivvies if he so much as smell a rat. And then he will grab them by the short hairs — if you know what I mean. “Carpe Catulus” is his Latin name…

And indeed, we fully expect unorthodox methods of tough talk, and straight-forward action, followed by clear demands to the Koreans to lay down their arms, as directed from President Donald J Trump.

That is the scenario that will play out soonest.

Mark my words.

And how would you feel when this crazy business is all laid to rest?

And what does it all mean for you and me going forward?

Those two are loaded questions and ones that we best discuss in the next column, the next time we shall meet here, to solve the World’s ills, and to make Progress for Western Civilization.

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

Yet, before we break apart — the sceptic has to ask this question:

What is the bottom line?

This is the script and methinks that it is time to sit back and let President Trump do the job we elected him to do.

Let’s allow our Leader to do his job and enjoy the progress that comes after real negotiations for a relevant and important move, towards a more stable and peaceful Korean peninsula.

Let’s also hope and pray that Kim Jong-Un, the little rocket-boy, listens to REASON, and that his tough talk is again met straight on by our leader, with God on his side.

And we all know that this will be a win for America, because we have never before seen this method executed, as we have never been able to bring this thorny issue to closure.

Nuclear War is not an end we desire. So let’s negotiate a way to abrogate that horrible eventuality…

And with President Trump, we can do that because we finally have an opportunity to bring real change and potentially reach an agreement with North Korea that gets enforced.

Words mean nothing without action and as we have seen President Trump backs up his words with action, and will surely verify that whatever deal the Koreans sign up for — they will toe that line.

And as the Old Gipper used to say about the Soviets and the Star Treaty Nuclear Arms limitation agreements: “Trust but Verify” is the only way forward.

PPS:

Why are all the dictators wear the same kind of neck closing pantsuit that Hillary Clinton also wore?

Is that the trademark of the totalitarian beliefs these faulty individuals hold, or do they all share the same-day-delivery tailor from Peking?

Chances are that most of you have lost your parents, and as Mother’s day is upon us methinks, it is good to recall her at her prime.

Let’s bring her forth, because as most of you already know — death does not define her anymore than it defines us, as being amongst the living.

Let’s reanimate our Mother, and try to find out what it is that makes us human.

We ought to ask this about what defines the living as amongst us, from all the humans that have gone on before, and are sure to come after.

If you think about it — there is hardly an easy way that you would answer this.

What could you possibly have to say to this?

What is the wise thing that makes the heart beat strong?

What are the words that allow us to close our eyes and wish life would simply ebb away?

It is surely not the awkward silence we choose to skirmish behind the walls, when death comes asking to be the topic of the conversation we at most need to talk about…

It is not even our longing to hear that trusted voice at the end of the line, to chat to them about the small stuff that matters, to tell your mum how much you love her — one last time.

How I long to call her and tell her of this “wisdom-come-lately” that whether we are together or apart, alive or not, here in this place, or another — we still walk together.

Separated but all-joined-up, holding hands like children at play…

One behind the other, yet part of this big circle we call life.

It is just the way we walk forward, hand in hand with those whom we’ve lost, and whom we long love — that makes us most human of all.

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

A mother’s passing is monumental to all children in as much as the sun darkened by a murder of crows, or a vast bird migration…

And as we are all children of God, let us not think ourselves orphaned but cared for at a distance…

Funerals always make me sad, and leave me feeling lovelorn like the quaint little apartment I once inhabited, in an ancient building called “Loveless” even though I know that it is funerals that redeem the lives we live when the sun goes out.

Her funeral face lent the color of the land and the face of the earth, which is the bread giver of life and accepts all as the quiet tomb of the family of Man…

Yet for me, it is her lasting memory that gives the color and the heave of the sea, which is the Mother of all tears.

According to many people being an American Citizen today it means bubkas.

And if any and all illegal aliens who get to cross the Rio Grande become American Citizens through the stroke of someone’s pen — then it will mean even less.

In the not so distant past being an American Citizen (Civis Americus) meant being able to safely walk the face of this earth, unmolested, and proud of being “Civis Americus” as all American Citizens, were fully protected by Habeas Corpus, endowed with the rights that came down from the time of the Magna Carta, and the Natural Laws, along with the protections afforded to all of the American Citizens through the English and then American natural Laws, and more recently through the United States’ Constitution, applicable only to “US Citizens” everywhere, and anywhere, we were found across this God’s Green Earth.

This protection largely existed even in the places where our enemies ruled… because the United States was strong enough to bring us back on American soil.

And then something happened and we lost this particularly and peculiarly strong “Civis Americus” exceptionalism.

Why?

Why did we somehow stopped being brave, being proud of this Country, and being confident that we will succeed in serving and surviving in the most God awful places around this globe, and even in the shitholes where our nation might have asked us to serve at?

Do you remember the days when being an American Citizen used to be an honor and a privilege?

Or when it bestowed an aura of greatness?

Do you recall the days when being a US Citizen meant supporting the troops that are fighting for out Country anywhere and everywhere?

Indeed because they were successful and present everywhere — being an American meant so much…

It also meant that you treated your fellow Americans with respect and camaraderie…

What happened to all of that?

Where did we go wrong and we lost the whole lot?

What happened to all of us that we came to regard each other with suspicion and even hate at times?

Fake News happened.

And then Hillary Clinton happened.

And much more fake news too…

But why have we fallen so low?

Could it be that this state of debauchery we have been recently relegated to, is because we have succumbed to this uncivil hate and dehumanizing ideology, that has send us all reeling back to the worthless status of warring tribes and un-American people, instead of Citizens of a United Country?

Could it be that the Globalist brigade with Carter, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Hillary’s squad that couldn’t shoot straight had something with it? Like they might have something with the ambassador’s killing in Benghazi? Or with Otto Warbier’s death from his mistreatment in North Korea? Or with the many other unexplained Clinton’s trail of bloody paws?

Further, could it be that this is all because of the tares that have been sown amongst us, by our own internal enemies, that only favor the external enemies?

Because as some of our most prominent politicians today seem to want to further devalue the essence of the American Citizenship, as they feed and stoke the virulent political polarization and the hateful enmities that now run so deep amongst us, like rivers of bad blood, and that are also freely weaponized against us by our foreign enemies, our national adversaries,

And if the Democrats’ constant playing tune continues — this trend is also going to be continued assaulting our senses and insulting our decency, while digging the chasm and deepening the divisions of our society, threatening to drown us into a bloody civil war all over again.

And although we know who is responsible for all that — we seem to be powerless to stop it.

But we are smart enough to see that under the cover of the smokescreen of the DNC crying “wolf” same as the elusive and mostly fake Russian influence on our social media postings through online propaganda that supposedly would cover the disgrace of the Democratic party’s email hacking from stupid people’s accounts that had the word “Password” as the actual password in their email system like John (uber-stupid) Podesta the chairman of (uber-crooked) Hillary Clinton and her (uber-corrupt) presidential campaign…

It was these (uber-rigged) elections that the Democrats rigged and lost, that necessitated for them to kill people like Seth Rich (uber-conscientous) a young idealistic American, who was so disgusted by the Democratic party’s corruption that he broke the news of their attempts at the massive rigging of the General Elections, after seeing how the Dems had rigged the primaries against hapless grandpa Bernie, and how now the Dems were enrolling millions of illegal aliens in their voter rolls, in order to steal the vote, and thus steal the Presidential elections and anoint Hillary as the Queen — likely forgetting that we have popular government in America.

And that’s why Seth Rich had to die… and Donna Brazile, and Debbie Waserman Schultz largely responsible for his death with Hillary’s blessings, shed crocodilian tears and made no apologies for ordering his snuffing out.

What a mess. We need to invite monitors from the UN to supervise our next elections because this is unbearable to watch. Imagine that this is America fifty years ago and you’ll know how screwed up the looks to us.

And look around the world in self respecting democracies and you see that people vote with a voter identification card and much larger countries in terms of voter numbers, take this Voter ID thing for granted and thus have well managed popular elections that are uncontested and honest.

Even India which is the basket case of democratic nations has got it right with elections that are verifiably done through the Citizen’s vote as proven through Voter Photo ID and proper vetting of it…

Yet in America we are still debating the case of Voter ID as if it is a Right of illegal aliens to vote for our national elections so that the Democrats who horse-trade with them can continuously get elected and further destroy our country.

Yet the Dems are getting their come-pause because it was their own stupidity, that aimed at sowing discord in our politics, as the corrupt Democrats, allied with the Globalists, and the NeoCons, further rubbishing our democratic system, that was already severely weakened by the last 50 years of largely Globalist and Neo-Conservative Democratic party led division, hate, and distrust — which eventually caused them to sink deep down in the mud, in all the polls, and elections across this Nation in this last Republican winning rodeo of an election…

What a ride that was.

Eh?

Are you with me so far?

And this state of affairs, was exacerbated by the haughtiness of her highness “Crooked Hillary” that relegated Americans into a basket of deplorables, racists, and uneducated assholes. This at least according to to the (uber-politically correct) Mrs Hillary Clinton.

A crooked and fully corrupt Hillary Clinton, fully represented that old Democratic party establishment, that still clings to that awful idea, that “Slavery” (mental or otherwise), is still a useful tool for the American Democratic party. A “tool” designed, to control and drive the masses of this country, like cattle driven from the slaughter yards, to the abattoir, as so much “grist for the mill” of their perpetual indulgence. It is the Democrat’s political Gods that are the pillars of the party and represent the seven primary sins, with corruption, sloth, and avarice, being the primary ones.

Tendencies for dictatorial powers and fascism are just a by-product of their evil and perverted psychology… such as the complete oppression of all conservative voices by the Social Media whores that run the social networks like concentration camps and democratic party stables.

Because if our susceptibility to the so called Democrats, is ever matched or equalled to their shameful cries of fake news, and prosecutions about fake foreign manipulation of our social media for our elections — we are toast.

Because the Democrats always accuse the other side of their crimes and that is yet another byproduct of poisonous, zero-sum politics perpetuated by an evil political party that chooses to pit one American against another — in order to win with their base, or at least to explain away their loss, of a rigged election…

That’s the sad state of the Democratic party today… and the tares of division that it throws into the fabric of our Unity, without fearing the consequences of their seditious treason and malice that governs their basic instincts.

Now, we’ve seen that play before, and we can’t say that George Washington didn’t warn us against just that chicanery of the Democrats either…

In his prescient farewell address, Washington said: “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge…is itself a frightful despotism.” He warned that, “mischiefs of the spirit of party” would, among a litany of other things, serve to “open the door to foreign influence and corruption.”

Washington also said it was the “duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain factions.”

Yet besides all that forewarning, the machine that the Great Thomas Jefferson started has devolved into a cabal of broken and evil individuals that govern the Democratic party as today’s political Oligarchs and the Southern plantation Masters of our political system, which they have driven it into the ditch and now we are all mired in neck deep corruption.

Being an American Citizen now means nothing if all the undocumented and illegal aliens can show up and vote in our National and State elections without any proof of citizenship.

Because when our highest RIGHT of CITIZENSHIP is voluntarily devalued — of course being an American means NOTHING.

And when the illegally voting legions of Non-Citizens who are already neck deep in corruption and illegality wanting to game our system by voting their own Democratic representatives in exchange for the American Citizenship for themselves and for their friends and relatives — all of the Real Americans are screwed out of our RIGHTS.

And if this destructive, self-reinforcing cycle of corruption, divisiveness, and dysfunction, does not end — we are finished as a NATION too.

We will be finished as a nation because the act of allowing illegals to vote based on the Democratic party’s “pay-for-play” scheme of corrupt politicking, invites the destruction of our National Value, the undermining of our governing institutions, but also tears the very fabric that holds our society together.

And since the Democratic political party has found some advantage in fueling partisanship thus having no incentive to self-correct it’s erring course — we are left without competing reason to include them in the list of American parties, and we should just rename them, as the Mexican Democratic party, or as the Globalist Democratic party, or as the Alien Democratic party, or as the NeoCon Democratic party, and so on.

Obviously the competition to shake up our two-party system, will become far more interesting when the Democratic party gets rebranded as to what it really is. A party of self hating, country loathing, and God blaspheming morons, that play at politics of the pseudo socialist Saul Alinsky, and communist Leon Trotsky, for fat-lots-of-good done for their own goiter…

These unruly Democrats are forgetting that being an American means to be able to say “The Pledge of Allegiance” and to vote for the President, the Senators, the Congress representatives, the county clerks, the sheriff, the judges, and even the Mayor and city elders, aldermen, and other elected representatives at the local, the state and at the federal levels. But it also means to be free and to be proud that you live in the United States of America, and that you can vote for whomever you want to vote without any pressure, malice or coercion — regardless of the pressures that are born by the Democratic party trying to suppress the Vote of the Citizens and to emasculate them by giving the illegal vote to the Non-Citizens and to those illegal aliens that hate this country and seek to undermine it’s powers…

Of course with the idiots now at the helm of the Democratic party, this evil slave owning party cannot reasonably expect anything to change, and the rest of us we can just wait and watch this old Slave Owning plantation & Southern Democratic party fall of it’s own accord into the dustbin of history, where it should have been placed long ago and well before Hillary Clinton put the stake through it’s heart, with her disdain for American as was proven by her reference to the American Citizens as “The Basket of Deplorables” and as “The Russian Bots” and worse…

The “Deplorables” are sure to repay the favor and boot the Democrats completely out of office this coming 2018 electoral cycle and you best mark my words for it…

The deplorable Americans at least understand something basic that the Democrats don’t. American citizens know and understand viscerally that anyone who is born in the United States, or whose parents are U.S. citizens, is a citizen of the United States. …

And citizens have one basic right that all the aliens (legal or illegal) do not have. That is the right to vote and to be elected to public office.

Most American people also agree that US citizens also have important responsibilities to their country, that aliens do not have nor care to fulfill.

And if you are an American citizen today, it is your responsibility to hurry the Democratic party to it’s natural and ignoble death from being on the shelf long past it’s expiration date.

Let that sucker of a party die-off with nary a whimper, because today our patriotic duty is to transcend partisan tribalism, and focus our politics on the sacred common ground we all share as “CIVIS AMERICANUS” (American Citizens).

And in a nutshell, that is the remit for the Lincoln party that is the good Independent middle ground or our Political landscape, where we are bootstrapping and supporting brilliant strategists who are running for the U.S. Senate as Independent people that are unaffiliated with any of the two major (dying like dinosaurs) political parties.

The Lincoln party is leading a new movement of Independents, win order to unite America, by electing commonsense, wise and independent candidates to political office across this Great Nation, and this vast God loving country.

It is important to note that the Lincoln party is made-up of respectful and respectable people, that are primarily PATRIOTS & CITIZENS of these United States, secondarily religious Christian human beings and community persons, thirdly family people, and lastly and perhaps lightly — people of politics, partisans, or party apparatchiks, or even ideological hacks…

Only in that order off importance we can co-exist peaceful because our order of priorities will be proper and correct, and make no mistake, although America’s two-party system has sometimes worked in the past — it only functioned in the minority of times, and only when when both political parties managed to work together in an unusual unison, by leader who could reach across the ideological divide of dogma, in order to solve the big hairy problems of government by the people, for the people and from the people.

Yes — back in the 20th century, a majority of both parties in Congress came together to enact Social Security, pass the Civil Rights Act, reform welfare and yes, even balance the federal budget. Several times too…

And that is what it means to be an American citizen…

It means to be blessed to be part of this nation, where we are concerned about a shortage of civic awareness and engagement, and we should act to effect meaningful change and accountable government through countless avenues for civic action that when manifested properly — we have the best government in the world…

But our two-party system ceases to function when the forces that divide us become more numerous and powerful than the forces that unite us. Over the last two decades, the scales have been tipped by an increasingly fragmented media, ideologically homogeneous communities (online and offline), the influence of special interest money in politics and the very mechanics of our elections — from the way we draw districts to the way we run primaries.

And it becomes really dangerous when the Democratic party and their minions try to delude people into taking away their “Right To Bear Arms” and to destroy the 2nd amendment of our Constitution in their continued onslaught against our liberties…

And Hillary still wonders what happened even after she constantly harped aways that she would place severe limits on gun ownership in America.

This foolish old alcoholic hag, had the temerity to want to take away our guns and in the process to mess around with our constitution, thinking herself superior to all that principled and foundational logic she could not even comprehend, in her small and shrinking, addled brain, fully filled with Saul Alinsky’s ideology…

The impact of the identity politics, the racial division, and the class hate, that has been fostered largely by the Democratic party, has been staggering. Between 1994 and 2016, according to Pew Research, the number of Democrats and Republicans claiming to have a “very unfavorable” view of the other party have nearly tripled from around 20% to nearly 60%.

In 1994, more than a third of senators and more than half of representatives fell on the ideological spectrum between the most conservative Democrat and the most liberal Republican, according to the National Journal. By 2011, that overlap — effectively, the “political center” — entirely disappeared and left many Americans without a voice in Washington.

Now politicians of both political parties move farther to their respective ideological extremes and fuel partisan flames in order to gain attention, raise money and win votes. Our new normal, as a result, has become political dysfunction that either prevents action on critical issues or, in the case of health care and tax reform, sees one party ram through its agenda only for the other party to become committed to its repeal.

How do we get out of this?

Pray tell…

Give me your answers here.

Maybe we can sort this thing together through some erudite discussion…

My thinking is that via Citizen’s participation we can work through this morass in this simple way, by remembering why we are here today…

We are here today because the success of any democracy is determined by the participation of its citizens.

When Lincoln during the Gettysburg address asked whether a nation devoted to the values of liberty, equality, justice and opportunity “so conceived…can long endure” the answer has been obvious to us.

But it is certainly not obvious to others, and especially not to the illegals, and the aliens in our midst… because in these words, Abraham Lincoln the Great Emancipator told us a great truth about our democracy – that is only understood by Americans schooled in our Civilization and in our foundational principles.

The survival of our Republic is never guaranteed, and its success demands wisdom, action, sacrifice, and constant vigilance from all the true patriots amongst the American citizens.

So I ask again: What does it mean to be an American citizen?

What do we owe to our country a the rent we need to be paying for living here?

First, what do we as American citizens owe?

Let’s begin with gratitude.

As many have said, the joy of being an American is the joy of freedom and opportunity. We have been bequeathed freedom, justice and opportunity from the deeds and commitments even the spilled blood of Americans who came before us. We did not earn the inheritance.

This nation is a StartUp, even thought it is a land of unequaled wealth and power, of freedom and opportunity — it was not given to us by our fathers, but it is in trust for or children and for or children’s children… Because no matter how rich and powerful America becomes — it is not now, and never will be, a finished project.

It is always evolving.

You and I are handed a work in progress one that can evolve for good or for ill. American democracy makes a wager on its citizens. The deal is simple: With freedom comes obligation. With liberty comes duty. If that deal is not kept, democracy is threatened.

Lincoln said at Gettysburg: It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. He spoke of a new birth of freedom so that government of, by and for the people would not perish.

You and I must learn and we must teach our young the words we live by. The American Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights (Amendments), and all the other grand documents of American history. And we must also learn and teach about the institutions that bring life and permanence to these words and deeds so familiar to us, so that they may fulfill Lincolns charge.

Democracy is not fixed like a monarchy. It is dynamic. Democracy reflects the will and above all the actions of each generation of American citizens.

So what do we owe? As Americans we owe a profound debt of gratitude for the actions of those who preceded us, and we owe those who will follow us to give them an America that is even greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us, and that is not diminished or besmirched in any which way.

But I am concerned, as I know you are.

I am really concerned of not living up to the charge of Abraham Lincoln…

Lincoln who asked us, “whether a nation devoted to the values of liberty, equality, justice and opportunity, so conceived…can long endure?”

To answer this momentous question we have founded the Lincoln party to solve the conundrum and make sure that YES it can long endure.

And that is why we are correct to be concerned…

We are concerned because too many Americans lack a basic understanding of our democracy our institutions, our representative democracy, our obligation to those who came before, and what each of us can and must do to preserve the blessings of Liberty and the fruits of Democracy, within our Republic.

Indeed a multitude of surveys confirm our concerns.

But we don’t even need to look at surveys or statistics to know that political participation and civic engagement is down basically across the board. People are voting less; paying less attention to their civic responsibility; ignoring the great lessons of the American experiment; participating less and complaining more, and above all else — young people and old Democrats are actively undermining our Republic in the misguided belief that we are somehow an unjust privileged nation.

There is a sense, particularly among many young people, that being an American citizen is no big deal, with no obligation attached to it an endeavor not particularly worthy of their time and talent. I know of young people in Indiana who when asked about the meaning of Memorial Day respond by saying that it is the day that pools are opened, or the occasion for the Indianapolis 500 auto race.

All of us are also aware of a disconnect between people and their elected leaders & representatives. People do not trust them. People think they do the bidding of powerful interests. People think they are not relevant to their day-to-day lives. People think that citizenship is hollow.

You and I are concerned because we know that if we are apathetic, passive, and cynical about our democracy, then we will invite leaders who abuse power. There is an old observation: a society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.

You and I are concerned because we stand on a precipice. If American citizens increasingly become disengaged, then the entire American democratic enterprise is at risk. Indeed, sometimes I wonder about whether our democracy can continue as we know it if civic participation continues to decline as it has.

But now with President Trump’s MAGA, we finally see things turning around for the better…

So, why engage?

Why should you and I and or all others engage in civic activity?

We have plenty of important things to worry about doing our jobs, paying our bills, taking care of our families. No doubt, these private interests are civic virtues in their own right.

We are good in this country at speaking out for and protecting our individual interest. But all of us can benefit from giving at least some of our attention to advancing the public interest, or as the founding fathers called it the common good.

Look around you. Many things need to be done in your community and country. Perhaps you are upset by the actions of your representative. Or the school that your children attend. Or the quality of your health care. Or the conditions of the roads that you drive on.

Or even our nations foreign policy.

Tending your own business and the affairs of your family is important. But civic engagement is your way of influencing for the better your neighborhood, community, state and nation. If you and I become involved, our cynicism will dissipate, and our morale will improve.

We may even see our life becoming better, richer, and fuller for ourselves as it also improves for our fellow citizens.

I know people who vote, walk out of the booth, and say and believe that their civic duty has been fully discharged.

Please, do not misunderstand me — voting is important, but it’s not enough.

Because unlike us the ordinary citizens of this country — all the special interest groups do not disengage when the voting day is done. Indeed those special interest groups, begin their work the very next day after an election, and they spoil for a fight, because they know that’s when the real work begins.

They know it, and so should the rest of us, because when we go to sleep — they hassle to achieve their goals…

Whereas we are mostly asleep at the switch for the intervals between the four years of the Presidential elections, and usually we only vote once every eight years…

And thus, we ought to begin becoming awake, and start minding the civil service, and the civil society, and the civil government right aways after the elections even if only in order to keep our representatives well informed about our decisions, actively, acutely alive, and honest…

So if you are upset about the influence exerted by special interests; if you are upset about the actions of a public official; if you are upset about the condition of your local school; if you are upset about a pothole in front of your house — please know that civic engagement is the only way of taking action that will invariably make your corner of the world better.

Pray tell, what do you have on your agenda that is even remotely more important than that?

The key to good governance is simple: it is to hold power accountable. Civic engagement does just that. We engage because it improves our democracy, and it is the only way to make our government responsive to the people.

So, what is it that we can do?

And how can we engage?

If you ask, most Americans want to be better people living in better communities, a better state, and a better nation. Often, they want to become involved but don’t know how don’t know where to go, whom to talk to, what to do.

Thus the job of civic education is not complete if we teach only its importance; we must be shown how to engage, how to participate, how to get off the sidelines and into the action.

This may seem overwhelming at first. But I like the attitude of the householder who said: I cannot solve the worlds problems, but I can build this house and help my family live here making a stand for my community…

We would all like to engage in politics in order to resolve the big problems. Problems, like fixing health care, saving social security, changing the tax code, defending our nation against its enemies, and so many other issues, and indeed some of us have had those opportunities to participate at the highest level, but most of us won’t…

Yet contrary to that, all of us can engage in a most effective way, through small, incremental change, and though local actions, such as when a school needs to be rebuilt, or a ramp for the handicapped needs to be built, or some safety signal need to go up in a dangerous intersection, and so many more worthy endeavors. Endeavors such as the help we give for a worthy, yet young and disadvantaged student that ought to enter the medical school — and we can make it happen. Or when a young woman gets helped to step into the world with more opportunities, than her mother. These are not insignificant examples. They save and improve lives and communities. The actions of countless American citizens like us, make many American lives better, happier, richer, healthier, and in some cases — simply saved.

This is the wellspring of our American democracy: Countless small actions that make a better nation. Many millions of daily actions of kindness and responsibility make for a far better world…

We engage by looking around us, seeing something that needs fixing, and doing something about it: We can stay more informed about issues in our own communities, as well as the issues of the state and nation. We can run for elective office or work for candidates of our choice. We can vote in elections and hold each of our representatives accountable – from the president on down to a town council or commissioner. We can join institutions of service – be it the peace corps, the armed services, Americorps, or local uniformed services. We can volunteer for charitable causes and organizations. We can join the sometimes messy, rough and tumble dialogue of democracy by writing letters to local papers or elected officials, asking questions or advocating positions. We can give speeches or ask questions why things cannot be better across the street or across the world. We can organize petition drives or letter writing campaigns. We can join – or begin – organizations that reflect our views and enlarge our collective voice.

If you know your community the problems that need addressing; the different kinds of people (not just the people like you); the issues; who is in charge; who has the power to get a message out; who can assemble people together I can assure you, you will engage. Set goals; craft messages; organize; and when successful share the credit.

Civic engagement is the greatest antidote for cynicism; it is also a great – maybe the best lesson of democracy.

When we become engaged in community life we no longer feel distant from the centers of power and decision-making. We come to understand our own communities, and appreciate how we can influence change. Perhaps most important, we gain an appreciation for the hard work of democracy how to understand different points of view and forge a consensus behind a course of action towards a solution in a complex, busy and diverse society.

If we engage, we lessen the distance between ourselves and those who govern. And we gain understanding and appreciation for our country that can only make it and the ongoing experiment of American democracy stronger.

You and I believe that democracy is the most worthy form of government. And we know that democracy cannot thrive indeed, cannot exist without the active participation of citizens.

So we must get into our bones the ideas of representative democracy: the consent of the governed, the institutions of democracy in our nation, the necessity of participation, and the avenues for action that are open to all of us.

Our engagement brings out the very best within us. Our nation demands not only our competence, but also our passion.

President Kennedy’s words resonate through the years: In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

I cherish the citizen who says: I belong here; I have a role to play; I have a contribution to make.

What does it mean to be an American citizen? It means that we are blessed to be part of this nation; we are concerned about a shortage of civic awareness and engagement; and we should act to effect meaningful change and accountable government through countless avenues for civic action. Above all, it means we are responsible for tending to our own democracy, making it work for all and transmitting it to our children in a better shape than what we inherited it in…

You accept the responsibility of an American citizen. Fortunately there are many more Americans like you but not enough. Our charge is to spread this message anew to all Americans.

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

The only way out of the divisive political morass is through new electoral competition that can fundamentally alter the current political paradigm. The American people know it, and they are calling for it. A poll by “Gallup Polls” finds that there are now more self-identified political independents (44%) than either Democrats or Republicans, and a sizeable majority of voters (61%) believe both parties do such a poor job representing them, that a real third party alternative is needed.

Independent candidates are answering the call.

And as the Democratic party withers and dies since it now has become a club for annoying complaints collectors and crybabies — we are seeing the ascendancy of the Independents in politics across America.

Since the self destruction and self induced immolation of the Democratic party — for the first time in decades, there is a credible, competitive and coordinated slate of independent candidates running for state legislatures, governorships and Congress under a common banner and shared principles, along with the necessary electoral infrastructure to level the playing field and help them get elected as Lincoln party moderates, independents and plain old American Citizens vying for the representation of their fellow citizens in the US government.

These independent leaders can make a difference in office. In narrowly divided legislatures, such as the Senate, just two to threeindependents could have a transformative impact by denying both parties an outright majority and using their leverage in holding the balance of power to inject new ideas and help forge common-sense policy solutions. Independents elected to the state houses in Alaska and Maine in 2016 are already proving the power of this fulcrum strategy as they help advance important budget and health care reforms in their states.

The alarmingly effective attacks on our democracy that exploit our divisions should serve as a clarion call for Democrats, Republicans and independents to join together in a common cause to re-unite America. In 2018, electing independent leaders who can bridge the growing partisan divide and put country over party is a good place to start.

Come visit the Lincoln party and become a Leader in your own right as an Independent here:

And we all tended to coalesce and focus around the intellectual fights that ensued over the words “well regulated militia” and their meaning in the context of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution that demands that we all bear arms and fight for our Freedoms…

I spoke amidst a chorus of concerned individuals that were all thoughtful and engaging with people who might have held separate positions and yet over dinner were civil and cordial, in the discourse as all of our JUNTO diners are…

You should try it some time, because Junto dinners are a really good way to meet people and share ideas in order to find out what it is that we all share as Citizens of the Great Nation.

And as is my custom — I ask all the dinner participants to give me their ideas in there form of Questions in order to find out what is happening, and the most voted upon question is to be discussed first. And the Question that was paramount in this month’s Junto dinner in Seattle, was the empathy necessary to allow the exercise of Free Speech in a discussion of opposites, about “the Right to Bear Arms” amongst Americans, so that we can engage in a civilized discourse, and the second question was straight up about the Second Amendment and it’s place in our Society today. And that as I recall, is the heated discussion that generated the most participation, and the most heartfelt engagement in the spirit of open dialogue, free speech, friendship, and mutual acceptance between the people having opposite arguments, as is usual amongst folks that populate the opposing sides of this issue…

Here is your way to find the next JUNTO DINNER: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ben-franklins-junto-thai-dinner-with-intelligent-conversation-tickets-43774598001

Of course, over the years — I must admit that I have heard all the pro-gun rights arguments from Constitutionalists, Libertarians, Republicans, and Libertarians, as well as the anti-gun arguments, from the Big Government Gun Control enthusiasts, form the leftists, and the Communists out there, sprinkled liberally with Democrats that think once the guns are confiscated from the People — then government will be theirs for ever. Yet the facts of this issue are rather intolerant, because in response, methinks that the reason we as a Nation think, act, and otherwise keep arms amongst the citizenry, is because history tells us to do so, if we want to be able to “keep our Republic” and our Liberties, along with our Rights, in the face of rising fascism. And also because the Constitutional Amendments were written in strict order to amend the Constitution for the better, because the state delegates had absolutely demanded that it be done, and had voted in overwhelming majority to do so.

That is why we alternatively call the Constitutional Amendments, “the Bill of Rights.” Because these rights are what the people demanded to be written down in addendum form to the Constitution, in order to ensure that the Federal government, or the State governments, and the City governments, or other bodies — could not abuse them.

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed following the often bitter 1787–88 battle over ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and crafted to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government’s power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically delegated to Congress by the Constitution are reserved for the states or the people. The concepts codified in these amendments are built upon those found in several earlier documents, including the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the English Bill of Rights 1689, along with earlier documents such as Magna Carta (1215). In practice, the amendments had little impact on judgments by the courts for the first 150 years after ratification.

On June 8, 1789, Representative James Madison introduced nine amendments to the Constitution in the House of Representatives. Among his recommendations Madison proposed opening up the Constitution and inserting specific rights limiting the power of Congress in Article One, Section 9. Seven of these limitations would become part of the ten ratified Bill of Rights amendments. Ultimately, on September 25, 1789, Congress approved twelve articles of amendment to the Constitution, each consisting of one one-sentence paragraph, and submitted them to the states for ratification. Contrary to Madison’s original proposal that the articles be incorporated into the main body of the Constitution, they were proposed as supplemental additions (codicils) to it. Articles Three through Twelve were ratified as additions to the Constitution on December 15, 1791, and became Amendments One through Ten of the Constitution. Article Two became part of the Constitution on May 5, 1992, as the Twenty-seventh Amendment. Article One is technically still pending before the states…

So we all now know, the Second Amendment states clearly this: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Those of us who have spent decades fighting for the maintenance of our Liberty, for our Democracy, and our Freedom, and also for our Constitutionally endowed “Right To Bear Arms” (gun rights) — have often cursed the “militia” clause because it always caused confusion in the feeble minded folks that then chose to interpret things to their liking with the usually expected ensuing interior conflict, angst, and depression.

And indeed all this discussion was overheated, as it was taking off well before the “Heller” decision that became the favorite attack point of the liberal anti-gun control crowds of jihadists of the Democratic party of America that in this issue falls flat on it’s face as it observes the tenets of Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedung, and all other dictators that have banned all weapons and handguns, from being found the hands of the citizens so that they can control the population fully, turn the country into a giant jail, remove all Citizen’s rights, create a totalitarian regime, and throw the whole lot to the wolves.

Yet here comes the Courts to preserve these Rights… as in the case that was litigated fully in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), which is the landmark case and after which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, in a 5–4 decision, that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm, unconnected with service in a militia for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and … for all other lawful uses… –District of Columbia v. Heller (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller)

Indeed the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and that Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban and requirement that lawfully-owned rifles and shotguns be kept “unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock” violated this guarantee. It was also clearly stated that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and that guns and gun ownership would continue to be regulated. Due to Washington, D.C.’s special status as a federal district, the decision did not address the question of whether the Second Amendment’s protections are incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment against the states, which was addressed two years later by McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) in which it was found that they are. It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Heller v. District of Columbia. The Supreme Court struck down provisions of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 as unconstitutional, determined that handguns are “arms” for the purposes of the Second Amendment, found that the Regulations Act was an unconstitutional ban, and struck down the portion of the Regulations Act that requires all firearms including rifles and shotguns be kept “unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock”. Prior to this decision the Firearms Control Regulation Act of 1975 also restricted residents from owning handguns except for those registered prior to 1975. The majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, and the primary dissenting opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, are considered examples of the application of originalism in practice.

Up until then, the anti-gun lobby had claimed that the “Well Regulated Militia” clause meant that only the National Guard, and no particular individual, had a right to own a firearm.

Yet, we all know that the courts demonstrated that this is not what the drafters, the signers, and the framers of the Constitution had said. That is not what they wrote, and we have enough evidence and historical anecdote to comprehensibly show & state that it is not even what they thought. Mind you — they had just finished fighting a Great War for Independence. They feared large authoritarian governments. They were the Revolutionaries.

This set of facts was fresh in their minds, and imprinted on their identities, when they wrote the Bill of Rights.

The entire Bill of Rights enshrined individual protections from government intrusion. They applied to the people. Why would the Second Amendment not do so as the anti-gun crowd claims?

Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed, and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal Government; still it would be not going to far to say, that the State Governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twentyfifth part of the number able to bear arms.

This proportion would not yield in the United States, an Army of more than twenty-five, or thirty thousand men.

To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted that a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.”
–James Madison, author of the 2nd Amendment, Federalist Papers, #46, 1788

Madison clearly states what a militia is and what its purpose is; to counter the federal government. The anti-gun folks pretend this and other documents don’t exist. They wish.

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
–Thomas Jefferson, proposal to the Virginia Constitution.

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of troops, that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States”
–Noah Webster, 1787

Liberal propaganda aside, it’s very clear what the authors of the Second Amendment meant by “well regulated” They meant all those who could carry arms, organized when needed, to fight a corrupt federal government. So…who needs a select fire M-4 carbine? Every citizen who’s able to bear arms. That was the intent.

For the last century or so this meaning has been lost on our citizens. Most do not and never have considered the possibility of taking up arms against their own government. They watch governments around the world abuse and kill their citizens as they sit comfortably in their homes, secure in the belief that it will never happen here. Let’s hope not.

The founders never addressed hunting or self defense. These concepts were understood to be unalienable rights that no government could touch. They were above the Second Amendment’s intent. They were natural rights. If folks had the guns anyway, they could use them to protect their homes as well.

That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or prevent the PEOPLE of the United States, who are peaceable from keeping their OWN arms..
–Samuel Adams

Next time an anti-gunner wants to lecture you on what the authors of the Second Amendment meant, explain what a militia is and cite my examples. It may scare the to death.

In conclusion we seem to have it all clear that this has to be so as defined by constitutional law and case law:
“In conclusion, the right of a citizen to keep and bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the state government. It is one of the “High Powers” delegated directly to the citizen, and is excepted out of the general powers of government. A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it because it is above the law, and independent of lawmaking”
–Cockrum v State, 24Tex394 (1859)

The sad truth is that the vast and overwhelming majority of the so called “facts” used widely and thrown around in earnest about the current gun control debate — are all almost invariably & completely untrue.

And if not entirely untrue, these falsehoods mixed with half truths, or foolishly “useful lies” are further twisted to the point where not only they are inaccurate, but they are damaging to the debate itself pitting the two camps of adherents of the differing sides of this issue in two mutually hated camps.

Here bellow is a decent attempt, made in earnest to comb through the massive body of evidence about this worked-up issue, that divides our nation as it is made up of terrible misconceptions about guns.

So I’ve tried to make this post, a simple and usable reference full of hard datapoint and irrefutable facts supported by scientifically measured evidence, in order to quickly refute the horse-shit that is thrown all around.

Yet above all of it, I also want to make these data available to all of you in order to be utilized in debates taking place now, all around this land, about this pivotal issue of Liberty and Freedom in maintaining our Democratic Republic.

After the Parkland Florida school shooting that was an evident failure of the Police Department and the FBI to heed the signals and the warnings about the mentally challenged shooter, and as the anniversary of the Newtown school shooting approaches and the usual gun control proponents, and their advocacy organizations are gearing up their propaganda campaigns in order to try and convince all of us, that guns make us less safe, and that the only “common sense” solution to the “gun violence epidemic” is gun control — I’ve got the facts corralled all together, so the opposite is easily proven without sounding like a Red Neck. Because as we’ve proven time and again herewith, that’s just not the case.

Indeed, every single claim that gun control advocates make trying to link the existence of guns, to violence, falls flat on its face, when you add a splash of context and some verified numbers. But in preparation for this weekend, I wanted to bring together some of those hard and fast facts, based on verified numbers from the U.S. government (rather than surveys or flawed studies), that illustrate the truth about guns and violence in the United States.

This way you’ll have a single post to link to when you come across one of these pro-disarmament articles . . .

Today’s Guns and Violence in the United States — Here are the Numbers. Over the last decade, the number of guns being purchased in the United States has skyrocketed. Just over the last two years, there really hasn’t been a month where the NICS checks (the background check required to buy a firearm from a firearms dealer) has dropped under a million checks per month. The NSSF tracks the number of NICS checks reported by the FBI, and while the numbers are slightly lower than last year around this time (artificially high due to Obama’s re-election) sales are still through the roof. And that doesn’t even count the number of new (factory fresh) gun sales in states where a concealed handgun license exempts the holder from having to pass a NICS check, such as Texas and Virginia.

Ruger is shipping over 1.2 million firearms this year, and that’s just one gun manufacturer — and not even the largest one. Some companies have backlogs of gun orders that will take them up to 2 years to fill, and when those guns do hit the market they’re quickly sold out in stores. Even without the new sales, guns are “durable goods” which means that they last a long time and the existing number of guns in the United States is (by some estimates) enough for eight guns for every ten people in the country.

All this is to say that guns are prevalent, and more guns are being sold every year in this country. The standard cry from gun control advocates is that more guns equals more death and more crime, so if their assertion is correct we should see a direct correlation between the number of guns being sold and an increase in the death rate in this country. But the numbers say otherwise, be cause Firearms Related Deaths are firmly On the Decline (Homicide-Compare) as the graph bellow shows:

If the gun control activists are right, then more guns must equal more crime. However, even in this graph that shows the overall homicide rate in blue and the firearms related homicide rate in red, you can clearly see that the phrase “steady” is the worst you can use to describe the current state of affairs in the United States, and the phrase “decline” might be more appropriate for the years since 2005. These numbers are from the U.S. Government Center for Disease Control, which tracks all deaths in the United States, and I personally pulled them yesterday when researching this article. .

Gun control activists constantly clamor that there’s a “gun violence epidemic” in the United States, but the numbers don’t reflect that statement. In fact, the argument could be made that as the firearms ownership rate increases there’s a correlation to a decline in the murder rate. So perhaps, more guns equal less crime? That’s the position taken by a recent study from Virginia that showed a decrease in violent crime as the number of firearms being sold increased, and while it’s an interesting possibility there’s no good way to decisively prove it. On the other hand, this data does decisively disprove the gun control hypothesis that “more guns = more crime.”

To give you a little context on where these crime rates are compared to historical data, take this chart which shows the murder rate over a much larger period. The last time the United States was this peaceful was 33 years ago, according to the CDC. The United States has seen a decline in the murder rate ever since the peaks of the 1990s, and yet the gun control advocates claim that there’s now a “gun violence epidemic.” I’m not buying it.

Accidental Deaths On the Decline (AccidentDeathGunLine)

While crime prevention is one claim of gun control advocates, another popular statement is that more guns mean that more people will accidentally shoot themselves. Well, again, the CDC disagrees with that assessment. Even as gun ownership is on the rise, and more people than ever are carrying concealed firearms, the number of people (raw number, mind you) accidentally killed with firearms each year continues to drop. The accident rate shows an even more marked decline.

Let me put this into context a little bit more. There are, according to the CDC, 308 million people in the United States. That’s 308,745,538. Of those 308 million people, only 600 were accidentally killed with a firearm. That’s a 0.000194% chance that you will be accidentally killed with a gun in any given year. According to the National Safety Council, over 12,000 people die every year simply by falling down.

Accidental Death Rate High, but Guns are Not the Problem (AccidentDeathOverall)

The accidental death rate in the United States is about twice that of other countries, like the United Kingdom (18/100,000 versus 39/100,000). And while that may seem like a vote against guns, in reality the number of firearms related accidental deaths are so small that they’re barely visible in this chart (source: CDC). The main issue in the accidental death rate is traffic accidents, but when gun control advocates talk about their topic of choice they make it seem like the only thing keeping us from having the same lower statistics as the UK is gun control. It’s a lazy analysis of the situation, and even if we eliminated all firearms related accidental deaths it still wouldn’t bring us any closer to eliminating the gap in overall accidental deaths.

Interesting side note: the difference in accidental death rate is actually based on the way we commute to work. Cars are basically death traps, and the United Kingdom relies more on public transportation to get to work than the United States. We love our cars, even though we have an extremely high likelihood of dying in them. And yet we still drive, even though there’s a 0.012% chance we’ll die in one every year. For comparison, I have a 0.0002% chance that I’ll accidentally kill myself with my gun. So in reality, my gun is safer than my car. Go figure. Maybe I can somehow shoot my way to work, circus clown style…

Proportion of Guns Used in Crimes is Very, Very Low…
Going back to that original point of the gun control advocates, that guns directly cause crime, then we should expect that a large percentage of the guns in this country would be used in a crime. However, that’s just not the case.

This chart shows the number of guns in the United States (using a LOW estimate from Wikipedia) versus the total number of victims of violent crime involving a firearm every year (source: Bureau of Justice Statistics numbers for 2012). If we assume that a different gun was used for every robbery, murder and assault, then that number comes out to 460,718 firearms. That’s 0.185% of all guns in the United States. For reference, every year 2.13% of all motor vehicles are involved in a collision. So again, guns are safer than cars.

Concealed Carry: Safer and More Law Abiding than the Police
With the increasing popularity of concealed carry, there was a common thread among the gun control advocacy groups’ opposition: the statement that concealed carry would bring “blood in the streets.” That these “gun nuts” who carry guns everywhere they go are just “looking for trouble” and itching to kill someone. Well, again, that’s just not right. (MurderByGroup)

Thanks to some sleuthing, we know that concealed carry holders are actually less likely than even the police to commit a murder. According to the Violence Policy Center, Florida has the highest murder rate among concealed carry holders, and Dean figured out that those numbers put the murder rate at somewhere around .58/100,000. Counting domestic homicides only, police officers committed 1.85/100,000 over the same time period. Nationally, the murder rate in the United States sits right around 4.5/100,000. Therefore, you’re over three times less likely to be killed in a room filled with concealed carry holders than police officers.

Cool, huh?

Firearms and Children: Declining Murders and Accidents
The last refuge for those without a logical leg to stand on is “think of the children!” OK, let’s think about the children for a second in terms of guns.

According to the CDC, the number of firearms related fatalities for “children” has been steadily falling over the last two decades even without more restrictive gun control laws. I put children in quotation marks because, while some people consider 24 year old people to still be children, my cut-off is the age at which the state lets you operate a 2-ton moving death machine unsupervised in public (16). The reason that this age bracket is used by gun control advocacy groups, as I outlined in this article, is that this is the age range in which most gang related crime is committed. Some estimates put the percentage of gang related murders in the United States at around 80%, indicating that the issue isn’t the availability of guns but the prevalence of gangs and the related violence.

Let’s move away from the murders for a second. Gun control advocates love to use the image of a child who accidentally shot themselves or someone else and died after “playing” with a gun. It evokes a parental response, making you feel like you need to “do something” to prevent such tragedies. And while those incidents do happen, it’s extremely rare — and getting rarer by the year.

Now, what about the Kids?

Notice that distinctive downward trend? Yeah, I did too. Nevermind the fact that this happens to less than 150 kids every year, the fact of the matter is that the “problem” of kids accidentally killing themselves or others with a gun is one that is disappearing. Instead of increasing as more guns are being sold to the U.S. population, not only is the raw number of kids being killed in this matter staying relatively stable but it even seems to be declining.

Public Support for Increased Gun Control Measures
The gun control activists like to make the claim that “90% of Americans” support whatever new gun control scheme they’re pushing that week. However, if you look at the results of a reputable polling organization (like Gallup) the truth is very, very different.

The facts of the matter are that the hunger for stricter gun control in the United States is like a fad that has run its course — fewer and fewer people every year believe that gun control is a good idea. The numbers of supporters have been steadily dropping since 2002, and with the exception of a small spike in 2012 (just after the Newtown shooting) that trend has been steady. The real surprise is that the percentage of people who think gun control laws should be less strict has been steadily on the rise, and in 2014 that number tripled to 16%.

Gun control advocates claim that the vast majority of Americans support new gun control laws. In reality, 56% of Americans either want gun laws to stay the same or become less strict. “Common sense” indeed.

Conclusions:

The burden of proof is on the gun control activists. Their assertion is that more guns equal more crime, that concealed carry means “shoot-outs in the streets” and deranged “gun nuts” looking to kill people, and that there’s a “gun violence epidemic” that needs to be addressed. But looking at the numbers from the CDC, I don’t see it. Gun sales have gone through the roof in the last six years, and at worst the numbers for firearm related deaths are stable. At best, they’re declining. Not one single metric that I could find indicated that gun owners were anything less than model citizens, and that gun ownership is not the root of all evil.

The best confirmation of this comes not from any study or calculation, but from the opinions of the American people themselves.

Indeed from personal experience and anecdotal evidence through all of my Junto dinners over the years, support for any form of gun control is at an all time low, and regardless of the mass media and the big government advocates — the reality is that we have no problem with guns.

I’d like to think that it’s because people are finally understanding that the object is not the problem, but instead it’s the behavior of the mentally unfit shooters and the police agencies that fail all of us when they decline to take matters in their hands — that needs to be changed.

However, some people still don’t see the light. Hopefully with enough proof we can change their minds as well. And if necessary we would like to invite them to our Junto dinners to discuss it with us and hopefully collectively shed some light upon these topics:

And I say this, because it was he that opened the door for many hundreds of thousands of people to read the good book, and to develop their own relationship with Christianity.

And it was Billy Graham the teacher and the preacher that wore his own heart on his sleeve, and thus offered his “lighting in the message” that converted Millions upon millions of people to Christianity through his massively beneficial Crusades.

And he was not fearful to give the much needed advise that we all need to receive at times of peril, as he counseled our own Nation on the path to National Unity and Reconciliation.

Some solid message that, isn’t it?

So for me, it is now proper and correct, to Thank him, for all his work insuring that this nation is saved, through one and all that turned their wyes down and prayed fervently, while hammering stoutly, in ensuring that is we are going to live for another hundred years — if not a Thousand years — we shall only do so, as a Christian nation.

And we can only do that by admitting that we let God inside our hearts through Jesus.

And since nobody found Jesus on their own, we must be grateful and fill our hearts with gratitude for our Godly and Good Friends, because it was always people like Billy Graham, this great preacher man, that somehow opened the door, paved the way, or simply led the ordinary folks to a state of grace. This he did for me as for many others, in his simple way, and in order for me to hear the saving gospel, and the voice from up above, that leads men to reframe the ordinary and super normal live we live, into the extraordinary life through the Good News…

This is how we get to the superhuman quality of Life, called “GRACE”.

This Life’s “GRACE” is the “True State of Letting God into your Life” and in return living momentarily in that State of Grace, that is unlike all the other moments of flow and synchronicity in your Life. Because the “State of Grace” is evidently quite different than anything else we experience in our daily life and in the midst of our struggle to achieve our goals, our purpose, our meaning or just plainly to win and overcome our struggle for survival.

Many folks like me became Christians by hearing and seeing the Preacher-Man Billy Graham, transport us all in the big tent, into praying and speaking at his behest, in such humble environments as his big tent gatherings, that he called the Crusades. Yet many millions of other human beings, were also converted to a faithful Christianity, by watching his films, his television appearances, or even his movies — that were all made for that purpose. Simple and well liked films, like the well known Billy Graham movie titled aptly “Time to Run”.

Time to run indeed, as Billy Graham came to his own at the end of the Jesus Movement years, when hundreds of Thousands of young people were coming to Christ all across our Nation and looking for meaning and purpose, amidst another bout of cultural revolution and revulsion of the red brigades pushing political correctness in the face of an anxiously suffering nation form the excesses of these communist cards and ideologues.

Indeed, Billy Graham was one of the very few preachers who unashamedly stood and proclaimed the three Greatest Words ever known to Mankind: ”The Bible Says”

His voice was crystal clear, and that is why his passing is so painful and the vacuum left behind so great, because in todays God and Gospel muffled world, I am not sure we will ever again see anyone who stands unashamedly for his savior Jesus Christ, in the way that Billy Graham so often stood, stood-up, and outright spoke form his heart, as he quoted passage after passage, from the good book…

Because today when the world is falsely accusing Christians of all kinds of sins, because they despise Jesus Christ and his words — we have resorted to attempting to water down the gospel to make it more user friendly, and perhaps more acceptable to sodomites, miscreants, perpetually broken and unfixable folks, and to simply try to accommodate the ways of this “brave new world” full of stoned and angrily drunk people serving evil dn the Satan like heathens and man eating barbarians…

But yet because we have done that, the true power of the gospel is waning in todays modern day world, just as much s it is waning inside our hearts. Our religion has become lukewarm, and tepid, and our belief is sadly uncertain…

My Anglican faith for one has become a bit of a joke, when you see the bending backwards of trying to be politically correct and religiously unsound…

Anglicans officiating with Muslims in or altars and our churches is not just a disgrace — its a stupidity “par-excellence”.

And all that behavior is shameful, but I have a feeling that reformation is coming.

And is coming fast and furious…

The Rev. Billy Graham’s children remembered “America’s Pastor” on Friday as a man devoted to spreading the Gospel, living his life at home as he preached it in stadiums, with a personable humility and an unwavering focus on the Bible. As his oldest son told the funeral congregation, “There weren’t two Billy Grahams.”

His adult children — all speakers or preachers in their own right — recalled being taught by their parents how to read Scripture aloud and deliver sermons, but also taking quiet walks with their father and feeling his embrace even when they made mistakes.

Franklin Graham, who delivered the main funeral message, said all of those qualities were part of the whole.

“The Billy Graham that the world saw on television, the Billy Graham that the world saw in the big stadiums, was the same Billy Graham that we saw at home. There weren’t two Billy Grahams,” he said. “He loved his family. He stood by us. He comforted us.”

Franklin Graham’s funeral message, which included a Gospel call to repentance and salvation, followed shorter remarks by his siblings in a service that lasted just over an hour before an invitation-only crowd of approximately 2,000.

“I believe, from Heaven’s perspective, that my father’s death is as significant as his life. And his life was very significant. But I think when he died, that was something very strategic from Heaven’s point of view,” said his daughter Anne Graham Lotz, later adding: “I believe God is saying: ‘Wake up church! Wake up world!'”

The congregation included President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and their wives. Neither Pence nor Trump spoke during the service that was streamed live online, but they met privately with the family beforehand.

The funeral planning began a decade ago with Billy Graham himself. It also reflected his family’s desire to capture the feeling of the crusades that made him the world’s best-known Protestant preacher of his era. Graham, who died last week at age 99, brought a message of salvation to millions during visits and live broadcasts to scores of countries.

The funeral served as the last of Billy Graham’s crusades, as the world was told by his son Franklin Graham who succeeds his father as the head of the family of preachers that includes all of Billy’s children. They read the Scripture, inserting their name into the passages to make their relationship with God, even more personal, and breaking it down intellectually, as his daughter did just like her father famously preached. Indeed they are all gifted with the light of the Gospel and when his youngest daughter Ruth told about how she sinned and didn’t listen to her father with a hasty marriage — still he was waiting for her with open arms to invite her back home with all his Love and Grace, when she realized her mistake and drove herself back to his hearth and heart. He never once recriminated her, but he gave her more responsibilities to help her heal and regain her bearings.

Then, his oldest son Franklin, now the CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association Philanthropic effort “The Good Samaritans,” spoke and wrapped up the speeches, with his father’s central theme: “The only path to salvation is to accept Jesus Christ.”

While Franklin Graham spoke sternly and loudly about his own and his father’s politics during his memorial message, by welcoming President Trump and VP Pence, who were the first guests he spoke towards, as he began his talk…

And he carried forth with Billy’s invitation to the whole world, to come be saved by Jesus that “The world, with all of its political correctness, would want you to believe that there are many roads to God, but that it’s just not true.”

“There is only one road, and that is the difficult path to salvation, that is to accept Jesus Christ.”

Like Graham’s famous crusades in many tents, in many states, and in many nations, over many years — this was no different. As a matter of fact, it featured a few great singers who had shared Billy’s stage in the recent past. Musicians, like Linda McCrary-Fisher, Michael W. Smith, and the Gaither Vocal Band were heavenly send offs, and the hymns that were sung were all memorable, but the one musician that brought tears to all the eyes, was the nameless Scottish bagpiper who played Amazing Grace with solemn mastery… at the very end before Billy’s casket was wheeled out to the burial plot in his library’s garden.

Billy Graham’s funeral came at the end of a week of mourning that included a public laying in state at the Capitol in Washington DC, a public state in Charlotte, and a 130 mile procession with crowds lining the road from Graham’s home in the blue mountains of Asheville, to Charlotte, in North Carolina, where Graham grew up. Approximately 13,000 people — including former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — filed past his casket during a public viewing in Charlotte this week.

And this past Wednesday, Billy Graham became the first private citizen since civil rights activist Rosa Parks (Died in 2005), to lie in honor, for a public mourning, at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington.

Graham was being buried next to his wife in a memorial prayer garden at the Billy Graham Library, with his grandchildren serving as pallbearers. His pine plywood casket was made by inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

His grave marker reads: “Preacher of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Friday’s goodbye also emphasized the message that only Graham’s earthly journey has come to an end, a point underscored by Franklin Graham as he stood behind the same pulpit his father used in the 1990s.

Graham recalled one of his father’s frequent sayings that people shouldn’t believe it when they hear the famous evangelist had died: “He said: ‘I’ll be more alive than I am now. I’ll have just changed addresses, that’s all.'”

Yours,
Dr Churchill

PS:

Thank you Billy Graham for unapologetically standing openly before the world for Jesus Christ. Why? Because Jesus did the same for YOU, ME and Jesus did the same for BILLY GRAHAM.

Thank You for not being ashamed to tell the wonderful story of someone who died on the Cross for all of us and for the forgiveness of our sins.

Thank You for being part of the party of someone who was willing to take the pain, shame and suffering of all humanity, as Jesus did just for us.

Thank God, today, the American Dream is still doing quite well, same as our Union, because both appear to be strong and resilient in the face of blistering attacks from outside, and seditious internal bickering from within.

Sadly the huff of desperation and the shrill cries of harpies, emanate from all those collectors of grievances, and the pitiful souls pining for yesteryear’s cultural norms and their hobby horses of corrupt representation. These devastated & mentally weak folks that are suffering through some perverse Daddy issues — now condemn their lives in total, because of the heavy angst generated from the serialized version of the mass media fake news about imminent teleological dissolution of our Presidency and Nation.

Like the smelly old fool walking about on Broadway with the sandwich clapboard sign promising the “End is Nigh” this new breed of clan bearing and CNN idea wearing smelly fools are now everywhere in Academia, in Society and beyond, and we have to shift our feet lest we step on their toes perpetually exposed for another one to step on their causes and calluses, and thus wake their resolute cries for some deluded form of social justice that is to be delivered at the foot of the bedwetting individual of an undefined, unrefined, and largely unsatisfied sexuality…

Even the old man of psychology, Sigmund Freud would have been lost here without the benefit of his “smack” to lighten his tooth aches and take away the cares of this weird and queer people that are so plentiful like selfish zombies out of the machine taking selfies before they bleed their victims out of life’s juices.

Indeed at times it seems as if the inmates have escaped the asylum, and instead of running away — they are hanging around wanting to run the joint, and ruining it for the rest of us too…

You’ve got to admit here, that regardless of your political persuasion, that at times if you listen to CNN for any length of time, invariably the constant cry of Russia, Russia, Russia, from the likes of her “superior ugliness” Rachel Maddow, and gay-boy Anderson Cooper — you are bound to think that these folks belong to a psychiatric asylum that specializes in Red Scare conversion therapy…

It’s a zoo out there…

But saying this — I realize belatedly that it is such a politically incorrect statement, that the voices of the assorted snowflakes will rise up and demand my sequestration to a re-eduaction camp of their liking in North Korea or deep in communist China.

Sometimes I think that I would gladly oblige them, if I were to escape the vagaries of living in ultra leftist, angrily selfish, and gender fluid Seattle, where Democratic pedophiles like ex Mayor Murray, and his erstwhile auntie, corrupt Senator Murray rule the roost…

Suffice to say that our suffering is massive but we are bearing the cross well…

Same as the rest of you, who work hard to fight off our enemies — we have to keep working hard to protect our friends. And our friends’ friends, simultaneously with having to watch our backs for those backstabbing internal fools, and also protect our Republic from the foolish & self hating inimical deeds of the leftist guerrillas and the Democratic party apparatchiks, and self loathing party cadres.

And the thing is that we ought to do this constantly, lest they steer us off our path, and cause our country to suicide off the cliff-face.

Ww should also stay on guard, lest we respond too harshly, and perhaps lose our composure, and our compass pointing to true North, and maybe led to take an awfully wrong turn, that might compromise our values, our progress, and our integrity.

We’ve chosen to remain steadfast for ever, and resolute as can be, in order to preserve our Union in the face of strife — and also to protect those fools from themselves…

And I am speaking here from personal experience, because same as our President — I am under constant assault and attack from the enemies of our Peace and Freedom. And while we are getting stronger every day, we still have to blossom in solidarity with the positive thinking person firmly leading the country as the current White House administrator, steadily handling the wheel of the ship of state, through the storm, and winning victories for all of us, as the current resident Chief of the White House and of this nation.

God Bless, Donald J Trump.

And God Bless America.

Thank God our prayers were answered.

Thank God that we dodged the bullet called crooked Hillary, in these past presidential elections.

Thank God, that victory of REASON, a winsome electorate that saw through the fake news deceptions, and our constant FAITH, manifested the much needed change for America.

The New America that comes in the face and the wings of the one person that will stop our dismal slide downhill, from the fifty years of back sliding down the garden path. A downhill journey, that somehow all of the preceding administrations have taken us down a few pegs, starting from the 1970s when real wages for most of us began to stagnate (as adjusted for inflation and worker age) and going terribly wrong during the Carter, Clinton, Bush, and Obama/Clinton, years of division and rancor.

Evils that have perplexed our nation since the dawn of time demand now their instant removal, and thank God — we’ve got the man to do the job.

Yes, things are changing. And things are changing fast and furious through the storm that has been unleashed like a gale force Nor’Easter, named Donald J Trump, and through his pragmatic and realistic cabinet.

Just look at the economy…

You can feel the change in your tax returns too.

I suspect that this year’s tax returns show the same for you as they show for me — as this 2017 is scheduled to be my best financial year. A year of solid success, and winnings at the crooked table with the loaded dice, that Wall Street often resembled during the past fifty years of favorite sons’ returns.

Yet today, this whole thing changes, when all the markets and all the issues, were buoyed and uplifted by this positivity tide of an optimistic and winning man at the helm of the American Dream. A man simply termed “The Trumpster” who makes it safe to assume that this will be the best stock-market investors’ year for all of us too. Whether you have a 401k, or you are a private trader, or even an investor with a manned portfolio and a computerized bot transacting on your behalf, or a mutual fund person — it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, because we’ve all been elevated economically and spiritually as this all too American economic tide lifts everybody’s boat. And the latest Trump tax cuts are also helping to add more bandwidth to our paychecks as well.

This much windfall, isn’t a matter of productivity, either: workers were more productive every year since the 1970’s, yet we just stopped rewarding them for it. And in the face of growing economic indicators in good and bad times — we have to face this sad fact, and the ways that it came to be, as I am sure it’s a problem with many fathers, and quite a few Mothers, amidst the severe causes of it, and most of them are political.

Yes. Politicking rises it’s ugly head all over again…. as newspapers, mass media channels, and internet social media barons — all over the land — are constantly lying and pandering to the lowest instincts, and the cheapest passions of party and class interests, of the men & women of the ruling class, who are dominated more often than not, by their love of money and power, as they seek to destroy the one man that sacrificed everything for You, the American President Donald J Trump.

These devil’s errants are run by the same kind of fools from New York Times that demand the President’s impeachment or resignation for imaginary wrongs and crimes of thought and fantasy…

These are the same satan worshipers of yesterday’s year like the fake news journalists of the powerful newspaper, the New York Herald that upon the ascension of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, demanded in an editorial, that “he resign in favor of a more “acceptable” man, otherwise “he would totter into a dishonored grave” … leaving behind him, a memory more execrable than that of Benedict Arnold.

Imagine that and compare their sad treatment of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator to the treatment of Donald J Trump by the New grok Times today.

Methinks that I know who is going to have the last laugh here, and it’s not going to be the New grok Times, anymore than it was going to be the New York Herald back in the days of Abraham Lincoln.

Still, we have to remain on guard because…

But this post concerns only one factor that generally isn’t touched on by labor statistics, economists, or by political pundits and polemicists. This subject I am about to speak for is a serious taboo, and its what I gamely, namely, and starkly refer to as what we “The People” call: “Wall Street Greed.”

Much like lawyers arguing in court present legal theories, and spin their ideas of how the world and the law intersect, and why this should mean that their client is right, and the other side is wrong — I offer here the two sides of the argument for the American Dream today and yesterday.

In legal circles and in parliamentary debates, the roof of one legal theory trumping over another, comes in the form of a verdict, or a court decision. But what we “The people” say, is that the proof is in the pudding, and as a culture we have many theories about how institutions and behaviors that aren’t so clear-cut in their validity tests, without a courtroom, without a jury, without a parliament, to agree or disagree, and to debate the merits of the issues — we cling to these erroneous theories, in order to feel better about ourselves and about the ways we have chosen to live our lives.

Similarly, in American business, one key theory (Shareholder Value maximization) is that the purpose of corporate enterprise is to “maximize shareholder value.” Some corporates, take this claim even further, and position themselves, that such value maximization is the “only reason” a corporation exists.

The “Raison D’Etre” of any corporations existence is to maximize shareholder value…

Just turn on the stupid box and watch CNN (the Business channel), or MSNBC, CNBC or NBC, ABC, and even Fox Business News long enough, and you’ll begin to believe this is God’s truth.

But I am here to tell you that it’s not.

It’s just a theory.

It’s not even a very old theory.

In fact is a newish theory since it only sprung into existence in the year 1976 because that’s when Michael Jensen and William Meckling of the University of Rochester published a paper titled: “Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure.”

This pivotal paper was published in The Journal of Financial Economics, an obscure insider’s journal about Accounting and Financial Economics, but not a mainstream Economics magazine like the Economist or such other issues. And their theory, in a nutshell, is that there exists an inherent conflict in business, between owners (shareholders), and managers, and that this conflict had to be resolved in favor of the owners, who after all owned the business; and the best way to do that was to find a way to align those interests by linking managerial compensation to owner success.

Taking this theory further — you arrive at the syllogism, that by linking executive compensation primarily to the stock price, as the two economists argued, this terrible conflict would be magically and civilly resolved, and it will make all business better.

Yet on the face of it, this idea appears to be more of a solution in search of a problem, rather than a theory of everything in Business growth and compensation relationship.

Because as all of you know, if the CEO of the company, is just out there playing golf, or is taking all the wrong turns, thus driving the corporation into bankruptcy, or his decision tree is overly focused on spending too much money on his own perks — the classic theory of business (and the company bylaws) said that the shareholders could and should vote “the bum” out of the office and replace him with a stronger hand at the wheel to steer the ship right.

But that empirically correct theory, and practice of Corporate management and leadership, is so mundane, so imprecise, and so impeccable – that economists who see a chance to elegantly align interests, and make the system work smoothly and automatically (in their imagination), opt for something else.

Ergo, the theory of shareholder value maximization.

However with this newfangled theory, the only problem to be solved, is the alignment of interests between management and ownership, as suggested by Jensen and Meckling. Yet that works just as well — maybe even better — if management just cooks the books and lies through their teeth in the old Enron style of Texan cowboy management or Bernie Madoff asset and wealth management system. And so shareholder value maximization gave us companies like Enron (Jeffrey Skilling in prison), Tyco International (Dennis Kozlowski in prison), and WorldCom (Bernie Ebbers has a federal zip code, because he is still residing in prison).

It’s just a theory, remember.

The Jensen and Meckling paper shook the corporate world because it presented a reason to pay executives more—a lot more—if they made the stock rise. Not if they made a better product, cured a disease, or helped defeat a national enemy. All they had to do was make their stock go up. Through the 1960s and 1970s, average CEO compensation in America per dollar of corporate earnings had gone down 33 percent as companies became more efficient at making money. But now there was a (dubious) reason for compensation to go up, up, up, which it has done consistently for 40+ years, until now when we think this is the way the corporate world is supposed to work—even its raison d’etre.

But in that same time real corporate performance has gone down. The average rate of return on invested capital for public companies in the United States is a quarter of what it was in 1965. Sure, productivity has gone up, but that can be done through automation or by beating more work out of employees (more on that later). Jensen and Meckling created the very problem they purported to solve—a problem that really hadn’t existed in the first place.

Maximizing shareholder return dropped the compounded rate of return on the S&P 500 from 7.5 percent annually from 1933-76, to 6.5 percent annually from 1977 to today. That one percent may not look like much, but from the point of view of the lady at the bank the loss of so much compound interest may well have led to our malaise of today. Profits are high—but are they real? Stocks are high—but few investors, managers, or workers are really happy or secure.

Maximizing shareholder return is bad policy both for public companies and for our society in general. That’s what Jack Welch told the Financial Times in 2009, once Welch was safely out of the day-to-day earnings grind at General Electric: “On the face of it,” said Welch, “shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy… your main constituencies are your employees, your customers, and your products. Managers and investors should not set share-price increases as their overarching goal. … Short-term profits should be allied with an increase in the long-term value of a company.”

Tell that to Sam Palmisano at IBM, who, in 2005, and then again in 2010, set corporate goals for earnings-per-share, which is to say he set a target price for IBM stock based on historical price-to-earnings ratios, as one of his signature goals for the company. And he was applauded for it.

“…the dumbest idea in the world,” is what Jack Welch of General Electric leadership fame has said about that time and again.

Please remember that…

Even myself, that I built companies on the fly and by the Thousands of StartUps — I never squared-up with this idea that shareholder earnings maximization should be the prime corporate motivator.

I of course knew through my college education Business, that this false idea, came from the orthodox dogmatic and seemingly illustrious Economics professors. My sentiment was also shared by the brilliant Roger Martin, who was the former dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, a couple of hundred miles from Rochester where this nonsense first began. And it is worth noting that Roger Martin’s very good book “Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes, and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL” ought to be read by anyone who is interested in political, economic, and even corporate leadership.

And here’s how Roger Martin puts it succinctly in his above mentioned book: Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes, and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL: “Imagine an NFL coach holding a press conference on Wednesday to announce that he predicts a win by nine points on Sunday, and that bettors should recognize that the current spread of six points is too low. Or picture the team’s quarterback standing up in the post-game press conference and apologizing for having only won by three points when the final betting spread was nine points in his team’s favor. While it’s laughable to imagine coaches or quarterbacks doing so, CEOs are expected to do both of these things.”

Indeed here is where Roger Martin contrasts the two markets that he calls the real market, and the expectations market.

The REAL MARKET is where goods and services are produced, bought and sold, which is to say the real world in which most of us live.

Whereas, the EXPECTATIONS MARKET predicts a certain performance, and then attempts to deliver as closely as possible, on this prediction, through whatever means necessary.

However, self serving Corporate America embraced the idea that their main purpose was to maximize shareholder value. And once they embraced that false idea, it became the FALSE GOD of the Markets and it naturally led to major distortions in nearly every part of nearly every business. Imagine the mayhem. All businesses and not just corporates are affected by it daily. And the result of it all, is that anything that could be seen as a drag on earnings, could and should be cut with great impunity and no respect for people’s job security, careers, or livelihoods. This cost cutting policy of course it also included the pension plans, employee pay, and all corporate benefits.

The result is that overall pay stagnated, while pensions and health care, were cut.

This cost cutting of course seemingly “helped” the company meet the largely “fake news” financial predictions — but it really hurt the markets, since every worker is also a consumer while very few are investors in the greedy Wall Street roulette game. Still businesses were forced to move to cheaper places to do business, (like Amazon leaving the high rent city of Seattle, for the wilds of DC, or Oakland and Detroit) and oftentimes the companies migrated completely overseas.

Research and development was cut, and cut again, as if there was no longer a connection between developing new technology, and new products, and the company’s success.

There were exceptions of course.

Yet the trend continued because it was clear, that although marginalizing workers, hurting the overall economy, and the society it supports, and somehow forgetting the Middle Class that supports all of what we hold dear in our Democratic Republic that is an experimental Startup in the field of governing people and managing societies through honest servant leadership — didn’t matter as long as we maximized shareholder returns.

That small thing we are saying often in America since Abraham Lincoln during the Gettysburg address first enunciated on American soil, the ancient Athenian Democracy’s creed: “Government by the people, from the people, and for the people…” didn’t matter any longer, at least where Corporate Governance was concerned.

And of course today, we’re all quite aware of the gloomy statistics around wage stagnation and income inequality, as all of our vociferous critics of economic growth point at — but we should not be nostalgic for the economy of the 1950s, when jobs were plentiful, grass was greener, and not to be smoked, and the trade unions were strong… and instead we ought to focus on correcting our Corporate and Economic False Idols, and removing false doctrines.

And that is what my work with ESG in corporate activist Leadership centers around at. Treating the Corporation as a helpful and contributing member of our Society, doesn’t;t only involve granting it personhood as far as Free Speech is concerned but also holding it responsible for logical and beneficial multiple bottom lines in our lives and in our communities comprising far more than the simple society of shareholders that are still accounting to no more than 9% of all Americans.

And we should stop pining for the 1950’s because unfortunately back then, in the gorgeous and nostalgic 1950’s a full third of all American children lived in poverty. Sixty percent of seniors had incomes below $1,000 a year. Only half the population had any savings in the bank at all. And less than 5% of all of us, had any money invested in stocks and bonds an manned by the Wall Street sharks…

However, sometime between 1979 and 2014 — the percentage of poor Americans dropped down to 19% from 25%. The percentage of lower-middle-class Americans dropped to 15% from 25%. The percentage of Americans who were upper middle class (earning $100,000 to $350,000) shot upward to 30% from 13%.

There’s also a lot of social mobility, with half of all Americans winding up in the top 10% of all wage earners at least once during their career. One in nine — 1out of 9 people — have spend some time in the top 1% category. Get a hold of that for a moment… and maybe visualize yourself being in that top, occupying the pole position in Society.

Only in America, tha land of the American Dream can that be possible for you and for all of the rest of us as well…

As for poverty, that has been transformed as well by falling prices and rising government support. Because today, when American poverty is defined in terms of what people consume rather than what they earn, we find that the American poverty rate has declined by over 90% since the heady and Love Happy 1960’s.

America has a pretty big safety net too…

Yet our numbers look bad because so much of our health care spending is funneled through employers, but when you add this private social spending to state social spending — America has the second-highest level of such spending of the 35 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, right after socialist leaning France that leads the European Union and all of the world’s countries in this index.

We can share data like this in sphere after sphere, all day long that shows America marking the progress we’ve made in health, the environment, safety, knowledge and overall happiness.

So our Society is in much better shape than what we’re discussing or even what we are allowing to be discussed in our schools, in our Universities, and in our daily Conversations?

It is our own personal philosophical lens that prevents us from seeing the progress and instead focuses not on where the real problems lie, but in those fictitious areas that cause civil discord and division that only serves the Merchants of Hate, like the Democratic party that represents the Ku-Klux-Klan today. They divide people and then swoop in to pretend to save them form themselves.

Yet we are Americans and can cut through the bullshit, and we should better call ourselves just that — Americans — and we should stop the divisions and the hate that causes is to fall down, and take a knee, to the second rate powers of the world, to the second rate political ideologies, and to the second rate politics of this world.

The very reason that I want to share all these information about the State of the American Dream, is that I believe the key to our country’s progress is citizen information, personal agency, and the value of individual reason — that all together work to make ourselves and our countrymen better informed as individual active citizens.

I do all this world, fully knowing that the key failure in the world is a result of entropy, (the randomness that is built into any system) and political, ideological, or religious faith (the dogma) that clouds reason and obfuscated reality.

Still the big problem with his rationalistic worldview is that while it helps chart the way individuals have benefited over the centuries, we barely spend any time on the quality of the relationships between individuals and their governments.

Indeed we hardly spend any time at all, on the decline of social trust, the breakdown of family life, the polarization of national life, the spread of tribal mentalities, the rise of narcissism, the decline of social capital, the rising alienation from institutions or the decline of citizenship and neighborliness.

Yet we need to avert our eyes form al, that because it is simply impossible to tell any good news, or even share our positive stories, when looking at the existential data from these moral, social and emotional spheres that have a teleological view towards the end of times and intuitively want to paint a bleak and black picture of our current lives in order to justify ending it all in a ball of fire and Armageddon, only to reach the much ballyhooed Apocalypse and return to their Makers.

What I am interested here is just the kind of intellectual honesty and courage we need to restore conversation and community, and for the people to take heart and move forward as a Untied Nation of Americans and not to harken back for the olden times when the buffalo roamed free in the wide streets of Manhattan.

Because today’s situation reminds us of the weakness of the sort of Cartesian rationalism that we often champion through conscious reason that can get us everywhere and nowhere, when tribal emotions have been aroused, when existential fears rain down, and when narcissistic impulses have been given free rein. Yet I do not harken back to the times, when various spiritual longings had nowhere healthy to go, when social trust had been devastated, and when all the unconscious networks that make up 99 percent of our thinking are aflame and disordered.

Our problems are relational. I don’t know about yours, but my Twitter feed is always aflame, with two raging warring camps that threaten to subsume, consume and immolate each other.

Yet, if we had an emotionally healthy community, and polity, it would be rather easy to have a positive discourse, and to avoid hurting each other as those assassins tried to snuff our my Life a year ago on February 28th inside Microsoft headquarters where I was giving a civilized speech.

If that was the only indication of mental stability, and if I were a vengeful man — would have to conclude that our nation is emotionally sick. But I do not dwell on this and I simply have to conclude that our nation is healthy, but it has a few badly rotten apples within, and it tis those rotten people that need to be isolated and excised from our midst.

That’s the only and total cure.

And we tend to forget all of that, for a simple Economic theory of Corporations that are here only for the “Maximization of Shareholder Value” that is based on an underlying reasoning that isn’t even true.

And we then trash our American Dream for a theory and it’s effects that are not visible for the trees in this vast forest of Greatness.

Digg in on that for now…

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

In other news Billy Graham the man I’d like to describe as “Divine Lighting In A Human Form” has passed away and migrated to a better address up in heavens… transported through this celestial airline aptly named “Flights of Angels”

PPS:

Let’s try to keep his flame alive: https://billygraham.org because we are grateful for all that he has given to this nation.

The year of the puppy is prepped to be a very lucky year for the nascent blockchain FinTech industry, and for that of the digital currencies.

And perhaps it is all tied up to the fact that the mainline VCs are consciously choosing to avoid risk altogether and the onus of finical results production falls on the shoulders of the new class of ICOs.

So as we see the issues of the Venture capital industry mounting — we ought to ask the question: “What are the root causes of problems in the VC industry?”

And also ask the attendant question “How can the future of venture capital shape up?”

And also this one: “Is the VC Industry at a terminal fall, or at a crossroads?”

Let’s attempt to answer these questions in a clear sequence:

Indeed, the year 2017 was an interesting year for venture capital, with a confluence of events occurring that could be seen as a watershed moment for the industry.

Some of these, such as the rise of ICOs, could trigger a gradual disruption of the industry’s current incarnation.

Taking these themes as a genesis for this article and, after previously addressing the portfolio strategy of VC, I wanted to take a look now at the industry’s issues and provide a view on the future of venture capital.

In 2017, I spent some time fundraising for a VC. firm and I have to say that it’s a very difficult and opaque process, with mixed messages sent from both sides. Framing this experience against some of the wider issues that are prevalent in the industry, it gave me some thoughts about how the industry can evolve, along the lines of:

Regaining the information advantage — Deploying improved fund structures — Taking the VC platform concept up a level — Alternative Business Models and Top Level Suggestions for the future — Understanding the present macro-economic threats currently in the VC market:

Venture Returns Are Underperforming the stock market by a lot…

Venture capital returns are sluggish, with recent index data from Cambridge Associates showing that the asset class largely underperforms public markets and private equity (Chart 1), with ten-year returns being below 15%. Considering that a standard target return for a VC fund should be 20%, you could see how the patience of LPs could be tested from this continual underperformance.

As previously noted, VC returns show tendencies of following power law distributions, thus, on an index level, the “home run” returns of the masters get diluted by the pretenders. Pitchbook data actually shows that this gap between the best and the rest is widening over time. Corroborating the view is the fact that when a fund becomes “successful,” its fortunes accelerate as it gets access to the best deals, due to the positive signals attached to a check from that fund.

The VC industry generates weak returns, but the best funds are getting better

As an alternative asset, venture capital will always be worthy of consideration within diversified portfolios. Indeed, data shows that VC returns have an inverse correlation of 28% to public markets. But to me, the data trends show that continually weak returns and the widening disparity of them could result in the VC industry splintering into two segments. For the best funds, it will be business as usual, but for the rest, access to capital may diminish as investor pessimism increases.

All the Venture Capital Exits Are Taking Far More Time, and the IPO window is largely shut.

Exits are the lifeblood of the VC market, enabling managers to crystalize paper gains and ultimately return proceeds to LPs. “Positive” exits come in the form of IPOs or M&A, and it is the lack of the former that is holding the VC industry back (Chart 3). The median time to exit by IPO for a venture-backed startup is now 8.2 years, and the resurgence of the IPO market is seemingly always around the corner—without it, funds either have to wait it out or pray for an M&A windfall. With exit figures remaining static and the number of investments following an upward trend, there are now 11.3 new investments per exit (Chart

The IPO numbers for the VC industry have not increased, and exits are not growing proportionally to investment rounds, instead many companies choose to remain Unicorns and stay n the baby pen for ever and ever….

A trend of longer holding periods for investments will have negative implications on IRR performance and increased stress on returning investor capital in a timely manner. There are no indications that IPO exits will pick up, and the prevailing theme is that startups would prefer to remain private. With large sovereign wealth funds providing IPO-esque capital in later rounds, staying private could be a far more attractive proposition over the distractions and disclosures of public markets.

The Silicon Valley VC Culture and Scandals Have Exposed Systemic Issues ravaging the VC Market and the VC industry.

Indeed the year 2017 saw some high-profile cultural issues in the VC industry come to light (e.g., here, here, and here). An overall binding theme throughout was how the VC market positions itself as a gatekeeper in the industry—as a conduit of power that can decide the fate of companies and entrepreneurs with irrational and subjective measures. Social Impact investors Mitch and Freada Kapor noted that the cultural norms of the VC industry could actually be incongruent towards finding compelling investments:

“Many VCs won’t take a pitch from an entrepreneur who doesn’t have a “warm intro” — someone known to the firm has to introduce the entrepreneur. This shuts out all kinds of talent from people not in existing social and professional networks. Warm intros are antithetical to meritocracy; it’s who you know that matters, not the merit of your idea.”
With backlash comes consideration, and that may result in less—or more stringent—allocations of capital to VCs. Investors may shun funds by investing directly, or via other channels, and startups themselves may take a closer look at the credentials from whom they raise.

Today, more than ever, the VC Industry Has More Competition from non traditional elements.

Until relatively recently, if a startup needed a significant investment of capital, its only choice would be venture capital firms. Fast forward to 2018 and there is an array of funding sources for entrepreneurs to choose from.

Other investment institutions that in the past would be passive LPs in VC funds are now investing directly. Retail investors too now have a share of the action—what started with the JOBS Act led to equity crowdfunding, and now we are living within the mania of ICOs.

Some highlights of increased investment activity from non-VCs are:

LPs directly investing in startup funding has increased from between 40 to 60 deals each year through 2008-2011 to now at almost 100 a year.
Sovereign wealth fund investments in startups have risen from $2 billion in 2010 to over $13 billion in 2016.
Equity crowdfunding was estimated to have reached $4 billion a year in the US in 2016, with annual growth of 100%.
The number of corporates investing in startups has doubled in number from 2012-2016 and now accounts for 24% of US venture deal participation.
In June 2017, money raised from ICOs surpassed early stage investing for the first time (Chart 5). Over $1 billion alone was raised by projects in December 2017.
ICO fundraising surpassed VC investment in June 2017

Venture capital is facing more competition for deals due to the increased popularity of these other sources of capital. A 2017 Preqin survey noted that 49% of VC managers reported an increased level of competition for deals. It’s no longer a foregone conclusion that a VC will be rolled out the red carpet for investment solicitations.

What Are the Root Causes of the Problems in the VC Industry?

Information Advantages Are Diminishing for Venture Capitalists

The emergence of mutual funds in the 1990s, and then the emergence of online stock brokering in the 2000s, has empowered personal investors to take charge of their own equity stock plans and investments. Gradually, technology created resources that largely offered the informed investor the chance of a level playing field relative to institutional investors and brokers, so now, a full 30% of high net worth individuals in the US, are self-directed investors, and they represent the fastest growing segment.

The VC market is displaying characteristics suggesting that its access to information is being democratized in a similar manner. Many of these new resources are free and accessible for all; for example, look at the evolution of the “industry tools”:

Private Rolodexes are now LinkedIn — Trade journals are now Techcrunch et al —
Company directories are contained on Crunchbase and AngelList — Elevator chatter exists on social media — What may have been an opaque and closed VC industry, has opened up, which in turn has bred healthier competition — For new or unproven VCs, the only advantage they have over a non-venture investor would be their network and reputation — Reputation is vital, but as the returns and probabilities show, earning-it, is not easy.

And for the majority of average/new/unproven funds that just scout deals through channels available to everyone, a question has to be asked from the investors’ perspective, of whether they want to pay the 2% management fees for the pleasure of doing this.

I was involved in attempting to raise a seed-stage fund in Asia, and all the traditional LP bases of family offices were losing interest in investing in VC funds. This was partly due to their children returning from grad school bitten by the VC bug, but also due to a view that they could just avoid paying fee/carry expenses by following rounds that the local VC funds were initiating.

The means that the incentives in the VC Industry Are Misaligned and the information gap has been mitigated…

The lifetime of a venture capital fund and its incentive structure may be suboptimal from an investor perspective.

Venture capital vehicles are structured as closed-end funds with a finite life, typically ten years at a maximum. At the end of this, distributions must be made to LPs and the fund terminated. While exit proceeds can be distributed in the form of shares from unrealized investments, it’s not ideal, and funds need to have cashed in or written off investments prior to the fund’s expiration.

Referring back to the section about exits, it’s taking longer for investment returns to be crystallized. This presents GPs with situations where they have to cajole an investment towards an exit, in order to meet the capital payback obligations. This may indeed be suboptimal for the LPs or entrepreneurs, as investments might be sold out too early, thus leaving plenty of value on the table, or been sold at a great discount.

Bigger round sizes now means bigger VC funds, which means bigger management fees under the “2 and 20” model. Management fees are meant to enable the fund to sustain itself and to pay for legal work and dealflow costs. However, the VC industry in its current manifestation is not scalable—the activities of a $10 million fund will be along similar lines to that of a $100 million fund, although the latter will pocket an extra $1.8 million of management fees per year.

GPs should only be interested in their carried interest bonuses, yet the culture of larger fund sizes provides more comfort from management fees, which might not be optimal from an incentivization perspective.

Diane Mulcahy sums it up very directly: “Given the persistent poor performance of the industry, there are many VCs who haven’t received a carry check in a decade, or if they are newer to the industry, ever. These VCs live entirely on the fee stream. Fees, it turns out, are the lifeblood of the VC industry, not the blockbuster returns and carry that the traditional VC narrative suggests.”

Are There Better Options for Entrepreneurs for Startup Funding? Yes, such as the increased supply of capital in startup funding has moved bargaining chips slightly in the direction of entrepreneurs. This has afforded them concessions with regards to the governance of their businesses, such as maintaining more control at a board level. This nullifies one of the value-adds that VCs typically offer, in the form of strong corporate governance counsel. One reason for all of the drama experienced at Uber in 2017, was due in part to its former CEO being provided a very liberal reign over its board.

There will always be demand for smart money, but the temptation for many to look for easy, passive money is becoming strong.

ICOs are a fascinating innovation worthy of an article of their own, but many of them are simply not appropriate use cases of blockchains and just murky attempts at raising quick cash, without giving away equity, or accepting governance terms.

ICOs present a tough choice and an even tougher situation for the venture capital community of adherents because if they participate in them, they will be seen as legitimizing a movement towards token-based passive investing that makes them no different from “Joe Public” — yet if they ignore ICOs, they contradict their very own existence and their “Raison D’Etre” of always looking out for the next-generation disruptive innovation to invest on…

So, how Can the Future of Venture Capital Shape Up? The answer is simple: VCs Need to Get to the Front of the Next Information Advantage

Despite increased access to information, the best funds and venture analysts will still retain the intangible skills of being able to parse wide swathes of information and find the best deals. One way that the VC fund of the future could stand out, get to the front of the queue on deals, and be efficient cost-wise would be to use big data to greater effect. This is something that may be scoffed at by purists, but a tandem approach of quantitative with qualitative decision making would allow funds to spot leading indicators quicker and mitigate biases.

Chart 6 below shows what InReach Ventures achieved using proprietary machine learning tools to build dealflow in Europe. Within a year, it collated over 95,000 companies, of which 15,000 were reviewed and then 2,000 engaged with. It also allowed them to spot a hidden gem called Oberlo, which was later acquired by Shopify.

The future of venture capital could involve using machine learning to manage deal flow selection

Arguments against this would cry “this is a quantity over quality approach!” But I think this displays an interesting angle to overcoming behavioral biases and showing how the VC industry could scale.

American Angels, has tested an initiative it calls “DOTs = Capital as a Software Service” which aims to automate the investment pitch and decision process. Startups apply online and go through selection steps without any human intervention. Its initial results showed some interesting contrarian trends that give credence towards giving all startups a level playing field with an objective non-human filter:

In our pilot, we evaluated nearly 700 companies and committed to funding several dozen of those, across various countries and many sectors, without a single traditional venture pitch. In fact, in most cases, the data-driven approach allowed us to reach conviction around an investment opportunity before we ever even spoke to the founders.

If Investing in Talent Is Key, Then Finding this Resourceful & Great Talent Earlier than your Competitors, is the Goal… because that’s how your company can scale the wall and outcompete the competition.

The earlier that you spot and invest in a startup with potential, the better. Historically, that would constitute making a set of small seed investments, then following on the winners in later rounds. Yet as investment rounds have gotten bigger, the concept of “historic seed” has become Series A, and now pre-seed is seen as the path to being the first institutional check in a company.

Being the first check writer, is one of the best differentiators that an active VC investor can take to stand out and outperform newer, less experienced investors. One way that VCs can take this even further is to go back even earlier, before the pre-seed round… to before the startup has even been born.

Finding inspirational talent that does not yet have an idea could be one part of the future of venture capital. Taking an equity stake in their “future idea” would be a way to encourage raw talent to go away with the backing some financial resources and see what they come up with.

Human talent is regularly seen as the core ingredient of success in a startup, superseding the business idea. A Gallup study claimed that highly talented entrepreneurs outperform their peers in year-on-year profit growth by 22%. Finding and connecting talent does not go unnoticed.

A Bay area VC, Mark Suster defines his job as being the “chief psychologist” and claims that: “We’re supposed to be good judges about which entrepreneurs and executives have both the most clever ideas and the right skill sets to do transformational things against all odds.”

Company builders have followed this style to an extent, but the great talent that they have are never the “true” owners of their business because they are salaried employees with reduced equity ownership. Spotting talent is what VCs do best, and they should go to the habitat of talent and get in their ear before they even have an idea.

The VC Market Should Adopt New Fund Structures to Align Incentives

The typical VC LLC model has been around for years and moves to change it could align interests more clearly between investors and the management team.

In 2017, when I was involved in a VC fund’s fundraiser, we were faced with two issues: the emerging market paradox of slow exits and overly cautious investors. Two such ideas that we floated to mitigate them gave me insight into how funds could employ better structures to align interests.

Evergreen Funding to Alleviate Time Constraints and Build Continuity

Experiencing a resurgence in popularity within private equity circles, evergreen structures take the form of having “infinite capital” through investors buying shares in a holding company. The management team then invests them when and as they see fit. Berkshire Hathaway shows a famous example of this model.

An evergreen fund affords the management team the advantages of having no timing constraints and being able to hold investments as long as optimally necessary (Figure 1).

Proceeds from investment exits can also be reinvested back into new deals and allow for a true legacy corporation to emerge. Running the fund more as an ongoing concern also allows for more prudence over costs, fewer fundraising distractions, and flexibility to deviate opportunistically from a fixed investment thesis.

Sounds good, right? The only downside to this utopia is convincing investors to part with money into an illiquid holding company vehicle with potentially very long payoff timescales. Yet when you consider how LPs continually invest in VC, take proceeds, and invest again, an evergreen could be more of a cleaner and long-term commitment to the asset class.

The ICO craze has seen proposals for VC “token” funds to be raised in an evergreen manner. However this is an unnecessary and potentially foolish endeavor, because there is no need for a VC fund to be built on a blockchain, since all the “Token Holders” would have no control over their investment, the majority of the benefits would sit with the manager, and secondary markets would be incredibly illiquid.

Deal-by-Deal Pledge Funds for the Unproven and Hungry Investor

This is an ugly (for the GP), but very pure form of venture capital whereby a manager scouts deals and then presents them to an investor base, who can elect whether to invest or not. By allocating funds to a pledge fund (a commitment to invest), the manager has assurance that the capital is in place and ready to be allocated — if the opportunity seems appropriate enough.

This can be seen as ugly due to the fact that deals can be lost due to the holdups and corralling for approval. It also is seen as undesirable for the manager due to insecurity over fees to cover their expenses during the formative stages.

I think these kinds of arrangements will come back in fashion due to their clear alignment of interests. The VC has an excellent carry incentive, as they will earn per-deal carry and they do not have to worry about a collective fund life. The investors also get an element of control over what they are investing in and being expensed—it also gives them more involvement of being “in the game” from the deal selection decision. I can see this being a necessary route for new VCs to take to prove their worth, similarly to search funds, which follow a similar opt-in-out approach.

Widen the Scope of Platform Services as a Differentiator

Offering platform services has been one way that VCs have sought to enhance their reputation and enact positive influence upon their investments outside of the boardroom. A typical play is to have an in-house expert on hand to assist portfolio companies with activities such as human resources and marketing.

For large funds, this proves to be an asset, reinforcing their quality of investment monitoring and access to dealflow. For smaller firms, allocating the budget to do this is more problematic. When you invest in a company, you’re empowering them with the financial resources to go out and improve their organization. Providing them intensive aftercare services can breed complacency, distract them, and cloud their judgment. This increases in magnitude if other investors in the same company are offering similar benefits.

But with capital supply sources more varied, outside of strong governance skills, platform services are one of the only strong differentiators VCs can offer startups. So what do the unproven funds do?

There are other ways that funds could add value to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, to mutually enhance reputation. To put it in perspective, if we look at a map of the entrepreneurship ecosystem, investors only really occupy two parts of it.

Stakeholders in the entrepreneurship ecosystem are legion but the true pillars of the House of Entrepreneurship are few an far in between…

Assessing the reasons for why startups fail, yes, capital is an important one, but there is an array of problems that entrepreneurs face in their burgeoning company lives. Building out a wider and leaner reach of platform services into the entire ecosystem is one way for funds to broaden their network, reputation, and chances of success. This doesn’t have to come in the form of headcount, but simply more outreach and effort in the indirect channels that affect the fortunes of the portfolio. Going back to using data more strategically, machines could provide a platform service, without the need for headcount. SignalFire uses technology to sift through employment data to help its portfolio companies

In Louis Coppey’s article, he talks about having a vision of curating a wide network of advisors that can assist virtually—this is something small funds can do too, as it’s far less capital- or human-intensive.

The platform doesn’t necessarily have to be directly provided by the fund—it could be stimulated on a portfolio level. I’ve seen Slack groups of portfolio companies where they are encouraged to help each other out, but contributions can often be lopsided in accordance with the fortunes of each respective company. Offering a more holistically tangible incentive, such as a portion of carry to all the portfolio founders, could be one way of stimulating cohorts to create their own platforms without physical interventions from the VC, thus enabling the VC to focus on wider market initiatives.

Get Leaner, Go Earlier, and Get Focused

Despite middling returns, venture capital remains a glamorous industry. For many, it offers the intersection of financial dealmaking with the ability to make tangible and positive interventions post investment.

The growth in popularity of the VC industry has seen new funding competition emerge and behavioral preferences change, which can be incongruous to the traditional model of venture capital. I’m not saying that the industry is going to die out at all—instead, just making a case that certain changes could be made to ensure that LPs get a good deal and VCs deploy their talents in an optimal way.

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

My vision of the future for the “rest of the pack” is that a combination of the following will occur:

Machines will take over half of the role that associates currently perform.
New funds will have to go back even earlier in the lifecycle to find companies.
Generalist investment theses will only be reserved for proven “home run” funds or growth equity-focused ones.

The closed-end legal model will evolve into structures that align timing and incentives better.

The emergence of ICOs could act as the catalyst for this change, and one now hopes that its relevance makes the now an important time to act…